
■9* •iXf* * V 






y% -.$HJp /\ «fr ** v \ -WW 



.•MBS*?. % 4° *<^B<» ° A 4* 






^ * 



:- ^ 












ABB* ^ .*♦ »>Va\ tfc. c** *V9fefr «. 












,''^>* V^> V'^Lo* 







n,v* .rag;-. ^*a1 



» ^ 












>* .^if. 








MENTAL HEALING 
MADE PLAIN. 



BY 



Kate Atkinson Boehme. 






Washington, D. C, 

National Publishing Company, 

1902. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
0W68 Received 

1902 

Of>FVBK?HT ENTRY 

Az-L. 3 b-(a ol— 
CLASS °^KXa Ho. 

t+%1 hi 



^3351 



Copyright, 1902, 
By KATE ATKINSON BOEHME. 



MENTAL HEALING 
MADE PLAIN 



LESSON I. 

I am now going to suppose that you know 
nothing of Mental Healing and have come to 
me to ask what it is and how it works. Ton say 
you can not possibly understand how r it is that 
the thought of one person can have any effect 
upon the body of another person, although you 
are ready to admit that your own thought has 
its influence upon your own body. You do not 
question that in the least. You know that your 
hand moves in obedience to thought, and so 
with all the members of your body. This has 
gone on so long and you are so accustomed to 
it that it seems a simple fact enough. It is, 
however, really a very complex and mysterious 
process. Merely taking it for granted does not 
explain it. What is thought, that it should act 
on the nerves and muscles of your body and 
produce motion? Who ever saw a thought 
when it so acted on nerve and muscle ? No one 



2 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

has ever been able to explain the mystery and 
yet we accept it as a fact. Do we do this be- 
cause physiologists tell us it is so ? No. We 
know it through our own inner experience. 

For instance. I see a book on the table. I 
think I would like to examine it. I am con- 
scious of that thought. Then I think I will 
take it up. I am conscious of that thought 
also. Then I do take it up and I know, or am 
conscious, which means the same thing, that 
my taking up of that book is the result of my 
first thinking that I would like to see the book, 
and afterward thinking that I will see it. 

I know that my thought has somehow extend- 
ed my hand toward the table and caused the 
fingers to close about the book and then my 
hand has drawn the book toward me. Hundreds 
of nerves and muscles have been brought into 
action, and yet I do not know how it was ac- 
complished. I may have it explained to me 
how muscles contract and expand and I may see 
that the entire network of nerves and muscles 
throughout the body is controlled by thought, 
but that is not seeing how it is done. 

That, it seems, must remain a mystery. But 
for that reason do we deny it ? Not at all ! I 
know of no one who does not acknowledge that 
thought controls the body; that is, that his 
thought controls his own body. 



MENTAL HEALIXG MADE PLAIN. 3 

I shall therefore take it for granted that you 
will acknowledge that, but when I ask you to 
go a step further and accept the fact that my 
thought can act on your body I am not surpris- 
ed when you shake your head incredulously and 
say it can not be done. 

But suppose I point to a hundred instances 
where it has been done. Again you shake 
your head and say — Coincidence. 

Well, I am determined, if possible, to con- 
vince you. How shall I proceed? I want to 
prove that a more wonderful healing power has 
come to the earth than was ever vested in drug 
or other curative agent. All the drugs and 
healing agencies in the world have failed to 
give you perfect health, and that is why this 
new power is knocking at the world's door to- 
day. It has done more than that, it has enter- 
ed but has not been hospitably received by all, 
and has been rejected by many who needed it 
most, and rejected because they could not un- 
derstand, from a scientific viewpoint, how 
thought can produce the results in healing 
which are claimed for it. 

I can well remember how hard it was for me 
to realize in the early days of my healing that I 
was accomplishing anything with my thought. 
It seemed such an airy, impalpable nothing. I 
could not see it going forth upon its healing 



4 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

mission, and it was not until the work was done 
that I had any proof of its having gone forth. 
Even then I was inclined to think it was a coin- 
cidence that the patient improved when I began 
treatment. It was only after many cures that 
I gave up the idea that the patient just happen- 
ed to get well anyway. Finally, the coinciden- 
ces became so numerous that there seemed a 
law in action, and I was at last convinced that 
it was indeed my thought that was doing the 
healing. 

My faith in the transmission of thought 
from one person to another was often strength- 
ened by a simple experiment. Perhaps you 
have tried it. If not I advise you to, for it is 
very significant. Get together a f ew of your 
friends. Blindfold one and place him in the 
middle of the room, after having shown him a 
key or some other object which you intend that 
he shall find. Surround this person in a closed 
circle with joined hands, while all of you think 
steadily of the key in the place where it is de- 
posited. After a time the blindfolded person, 
with slow and uncertain steps, will begin to 
move toward the key and will ultimately find it. 

This is the sensation of the one blindfolded as 
I experienced it. First my mind felt utterly 
vacant. All thought seemed to vanish. Then 
in a few seconds I felt pushed as by unseen 
hands in a certain direction. So strong was 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 5 

the inclination of my body in that direction that 
I would have fallen had I not put out one foot 
to save myself. Then another push and an- 
other step, and so I gradually approached a 
chair on which the key had been placed. When 
I reached the chair instead of veering away 
from it or going around it as I might have done, 
my whole body relaxed and I drooped over it 
with arms listlessly hanging until one hand 
touched the key. On another occasion the key 
was hung upon the wall, and when I reached 
the wall I felt a desire to stretch upward with 
one arm. I did so and touched the key where it 
hung upon a nail. 

Xow, had the action of those minds been di- 
rected to my mind, I might have had a definite 
idea of the position of the key. I would prob- 
ably have thought, The key is on the chair or, 
The key hangs on the wall, but I had no such 
definite thought. It seemed more like a blind 
instinctive movement for which I could not ac- 
count. I was impelled to move, I knew not 
why. It therefore seemed as though the thought 
acted directly upon my body without passing 
through the medium of my mind. Still, had 
it first passed through the mind it would have 
confirmed the fact of thought transmission. The 
position of the key would have been conveyed 
to my mind without spoken word and the 
thought itself must have been transmitted di- 



6 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

rectly and without the usual medium of speech. 

The law of telepathy or thought transmission 
is now accepted by scientific men the world 
over, but I am assuming that you do not know 
this and that the subject is entirely new to you; 
in which event you have a simple experiment 
at hand. It is easy to try it and convince your- 
self, for personal experience goes a long way 
toward conviction, in fact, conviction seldom 
comes without it. 

There is a large hospital in Paris called La 
Salpetriere. It is one of the oldest and largest 
hospitals there, covering an area of seventy- 
four acres and consisting of forty-five large 
blocks. In that hospital the patients are treat- 
ed almost entirely by the power of thought. 
The doctors there do not call it mental healing, 
however; they call it hypnotic suggestion, but 
thought power is the agent just the same. They 
do some queer things there which you would 
hardly believe did not the reputation of the 
physicians and the standing of the hospital back 
up the statements. 

IsTow, hypnotic suggestion differs from men- 
tal healing in several respects, one of which I 
will mention. In hypnotic suggestion it is 
deemed necessary to throw the patient into a 
peculiar state of sleep which is called hypnosis. 
In mental healing we do not think that essen- 



MENTAX HEALIXG MADE PLAIX. 7 

tial, for we believe it to be an abnormal or un- 
natural condition and would therefore avoid it 
if possible. 

But let me tell you what is done to these 
patients while in the state of hypnosis. A drop 
of cold water is placed on the flesh and the pa- 
tient is told that it is boiling oil. It then 
draws a blister. ISTow, how do you suppose this 
is done ? Quite a mystery, is it not ? But be- 
ing done by reputable doctors in a reputable 
hospital you can not very well doubt it. 

Then these doctors take a fly-blister and di- 
vide it into three parts, 1, 2, and 3. JNTumber 1 
they place upon a patient's right arm, number 
2 upon the left and number 3 upon the arm of 
a person who is not in hypnosis. This done, 
the doctor says of number 1 that it will not 
draw a blister, and says nothing of number 2 
or 3. The result is that number 1 does not 
draw a blister. They call that negative sug- 
gestion, which means that the blistering power is 
all taken away from the number 1 piece of fly- 
blister while it remains in the other two pieces, 
numbers 2 and 3. I say the blistering power is 
drawn out of number 1, but perhaps it is more 
correct to say that the skin of the patient is 
made positive against it. The fly-blister be- 
comes negative to the skin of the patient and 
produces no effect upon it, although it is a good, 



8 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

strong blister, as may be seen by the effect 
produced by numbers 2 and 3. 

What a wonderful power this is, to be sure, 
that can turn a drop of pure, cold water into a 
violent irritant, or a fly -blister into something as 
harmless as a postage stamp. 

I could tell you of many other curious ex- 
periments that are performed not only in La 
Salpetriere, but in other hospitals, and by many 
physicians in their private practice. Dr. Char- 
cot, whose standing at the head of the medical 
profession no one will question, is known to 
have used hypnotic suggestion largely and in 
preference to drugs, and the same is true of 
many of the most advanced physicians of the 
day. 

I will now quote from the Medical Summary, 
of Philadelphia, which says editorially: 

"A popular writer has said that suggestion is 
the moving power in the treatment of disease. 
Experienced practitioners habitually employ it 
to advantage of the patient. Prudent friends 
and callers at the bedside practice suggestion by 
taking with them the assurance of better things 
to come. A word of cheer, the reassuring 
smile, inspires hope — this, too, is suggestion. 
Rheumatic rings, magnetic healing, and divine 
healing all have their tap root in suggestion. 
Pain, sleeplessness, neuralgia, rheumatism, 



MENTAi HEALING MADE PLAIN. 9 

headache, etc., often yield to suggestion. If, 
with ability to diagnose disease and without the 
aid from coal-tar sedatives and opiates, the phy- 
sician can relieve such maladies as headache, 
lumbago, sciatica, or the anguish of rheumatic 
joint, duty imposes the obligation to do so." 

This shows the trend of the more advanced 
and liberal in the medical fraternity, and for 
my part I am not at all inclined to antagonize 
the profession as a whole, or indeed, at all. 
What if there are some illiterate physicians 
who are opposed to the new movement. They 
do not lead the van. There are others, more 
intelligent, who are in the lead, and the igno- 
rant will follow. I have many regular physi- 
cians on my list of subscribers, who write me 
for instruction. Others who actually send their 
patients to me for treatment, and others still 
who take treatment themselves, who acknowl- 
edge the inefficacy of drugs, and ask for some- 
thing better. One physician in New York 
asked me to go in partnership with him, and if 
the truth were known physicians as a whole are 
not so prejudiced as they are represented to be. 

Of course, if we go in as cranks and order 
that the attending physician be turned out of 
the sick room, we naturally stir up some ill feel- 
ing. That is the mistake the Christian Scien- 
tists have made, as in the case of Harold Fred- 



10 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

eric, where the doctor was discharged and the 
patient died. If the Christian Scientists al- 
ways saved their patients it would be quite an- 
other thing; they could then discharge doctors 
with impunity, but since they often fail, it were 
better not to attempt to carry things with so 
high a hand since it serves to bring discredit 
upon their movement. Mental Scientists, on 
the other hand, are more modest in their claims, 
more courteous to the medical profession, and 
rarely fail to heal their patients. 

You see the world keeps moving on and no 
conservatism can stop it. One system gives 
place to another. Different schools of medicine 
have appeared, had their day, and vanished. 
Mental Healing is here now. It is having its 
day. When that day has passed it will give 
place to something else, but that does not con- 
cern us. While we have a power for good in our 
hands it is best to use it, and not go about 
vaguely seeking for what is to follow. When 
Mental Healing is on the wane it will be time 
enough to look for something better. And it 
is not on the wane, but steadily rising toward 
the Zenith. 

When you realize that a drop of cold 
water, when used with hypnotic suggestion, can 
draw a blister, can you doubt the power of 
thought over the secretions of the body % More- 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 11 

over, the drop of water is not actually necessary 
in the experiment, for thought alone can pro- 
duce the blister and it has done so. On the other 
hand, thought alone can prevent a blister and it 
has done so. 

Professor Wm. James, of Harvard Univer- 
sity, says that tumefaction can be produced by 
thought in any part of the body. By the same 
principle, applied in the opposite manner, tume- 
faction can be removed by thought. 

Dr. Elmer Gates has shown that blood can 
be sent here and there at will throughout the 
body by simply thinking it there. This he can 
prove to you beyond a doubt. Other men of 
science are giving out quite as remarkable state- 
ments and their word must go for something. 
You can not shake your head forever and doubt 
everything and everybody. You accept a great 
deal on the evidence of chemists, astronomers 
and naturalists, and the evidence in favor of the 
power of thought in curing disease is just as 
convincing. Xo one w r ho investigates thorough- 
ly can doubt it. 

I think perhaps the greatest obstacle to our 
believing that thought can pass from one mind 
to that of another is that there does not seem to 
be any material agent of transmission, any ve- 
hicle for travel. But there is. It is a refined 
matter in the form of ether, and on this ether 



12 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

thought travels. There are things which we 
may not detect with our senses which neverthe- 
less exist and this is one of them. 

Electricity exists all about us, but we are 
unaware of the f act, and there was a time when 
we would have deemed it impossible that it 
should be pressed into service as it now is. If 
Edison lives long enough he will show us how 
to find and use it without putting up great elec- 
tric plants and a lot of cumbersome machinery. 
Even now he is discovering a way to produce it 
direct from coal. We shall run our automo- 
biles, light our houses and do all sorts of things 
with electricity minus the engine or dynamo. 
What an advance, but it only goes to show how 
the world is moving toward finer and finer 
agencies. 

Who would have thought that we should be 
telegraphing without wires ? I confess that it is 
still a wonder to me when a transmitter is set 
up here in Washington and a receiver in Boston, 
that a message should travel without wires from 
here to Boston and not get lost on the way. 
But it gets there and so does thought when it 
goes from a healer here to a patient in Boston. 
The healer is the transmitter and the patient 
is the receiver, the message going straight and 
true from one to the other. And not only that, 
but from here to England, from here to Fin- 
land, fromhere to South Africa, from here any- 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 13 

where wherever the receiver is set up in the form 
of a patient. It may take weeks for a letter to go 
to some of these places, but a thought goes in 
an instant, like an electric flash. We have dis- 
covered an electrical thought power, and we 
live in an electrical age. Great and still great- 
er wonders are to be unfolded in the present 
century. 

In my next lesson I shall say something of 
how thought controls the involuntary activities 
of the body, the beating of the heart, circula- 
tion of the blood, digestion, etc. 

In the meantime, think over what I have said 
about this thought power, and you will be ready 
to admit that there is at least a possibility of 
its transmission from mind to mind. That once 
admitted, it will not seem so ridiculous or im- 
probable that it should heal disease. If you be- 
lieve that thought is a force, that it acts on the 
body and also believe that it can be transmitted 
from one mind to another or from one mind to 
another body, then it seems to me but a step for 
you to believe that it can either produce or cure 
disease. 

Have you not noticed that the angry thought 
of another can make you ill, even though not a 
word be spoken? That simply goes to show 
how thought can produce disease. There is 
another quality of thought that can heal. We 
will speak of that later. 



LESSON II. 

In my former lesson I tried to make it clear 
that thought is a force, a silent force, that can 
act without the medium of spoken or written 
word, and that the thought of one mind can act 
on the body of another person. It can act for 
good or ill. It can make well or it can make 
sick. Since it is such a power it is wise to know 
something about it, and how to use it. That 
knowledge is open to anyone who will seek for 
it, and it is so well worth seeking that I feel like 
calling it — The one thing needful, to be desired 
above all things. 

If you wished to run a locomotive you would 
certainly acquaint yourself with its parts; 
you would learn about its mechanism and 
how it worked, or you would be a very poor 
engineer, and probably have an accident on 
your first trip. You would go on having acci- 
dents until you knew more about your engine 
and how to control it. 

3sTow, that is just what we have been doing. 
We have attempted to run a human engine of 
which we know far too little, and in conse- 
quence have had our mishaps, which we called 
sicknesses, and our engines have been in the 
repair shop far too much of the time. To be 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 15 

sure the mechanism of the human engine is 
much more complicated and difficult to under- 
stand than that of its iron brother, but it is pos- 
sible to learn all that is necessary to know, in 
order to have it under perfect control. It 
takes time, of course, and thought, and perse- 
verance, but it is time and thought and perse- 
verance well spent. In fact, it could not be 
better spent. 

Is there any study that can compare with it ? 
I should say not. Indeed, it may well be made 
the first of all studies, for without health, peace 
of mind and the ability to master circumstances, 
what can we accomplish in any direction ? To 
bring our powers, well evolved, to bear upon 
the vocation which we may choose is to make 
delightful work of it, and not painful labor. 

"We are placed in the position of the man who 
might attempt to run an engine without suffi- 
cient knowledge of it. He must experiment, 
and so must we. He must find the motive 
power and learn how to use and control it; so 
must we. He must be able to increase that 
motive power; so must we. 

But here the analogy ends, for, while the 
power of an engine has a limit, ours has none. 

I once saw a slender, delicate little fellow 
who had been without food for a week perform 
a feat which would have shamed a Sandow. He 
had been thrown into a hypnotic sleep in a pub- 



16 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

lie hall and kept under constant surveillance 
during the seven days of his fast, and at the 
close he was placed in a chair and held down 
in it by six strong policemen. At a signal from 
the man who held him in hypnotic control the 
little frail creature sprang up and threw off 
those powerful men as though they had been 
insects which had settled upon him. Now, 
where did his strength come from? It was 
certainly not resident in his flabby muscles. 

I have seen many exhibitions of this kind, 
and it all goes to convince me that we are open 
on the inner, mental side to a great reservoir 
of strength, which can pour into weak muscles 
and strengthen them on the instant. Once, be- 
fore the Society for Psychical Eesearch in Bos- 
ton, I saw two hypnotized subjects impersonate 
Bill ISTye and a political speaker. The operator 
simply suggested to the one that he was Bill 
ISTye and to the other that he was on the stump 
in the interests of his candidate. The pseudo 
Bill ]STye was irresistibly droll, and his elo- 
quence flowed in a steady stream to the end of 
his long address. The stump-speaker was just 
as good in his role, and to me it was remarkable 
that each should so excel in his oratory, for cer- 
tainly the operator could not have given more 
than a suggestion for each to carry out. If he 
had given to either speaker his discourse word 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIX. 17 

for word he must have been a remarkably fine 
orator, while to give two such addresses simul- 
taneously to the two speakers would have im- 
plied more ability than I for one moment could 
have believed him to possess. 

What, then, was the alternative? Each 
speaker must have tapped for himself the source 
of inspiration. In some inscrutable way the 
suggestion to the one that he was Bill .Nye must 
have brought him in touch with Bill Nye's cur- 
rent of thought, while the suggestion to the 
other that he was a stump speaker must have 
connected him with that current. 

These instances and many others of a similar 
character have led me to think that back of 
each one of us is this great reservoir containing 
all that it is possible for us to express of 
strength, of vitality, of health, of harmony, of 
beauty, of all that we can imagine, of all that 
we would be. We have but to open the chan- 
nel and let it flow through. 

There stands the engine on the track, a 
motionless thing awaiting the touch of the en- 
gineer's hand. The throttle opens and away 
she springs, a creature of life and power. Is it 
a miracle ? K"o, an everyday occurrence and yet 
a matter of law, a matter of adjustment, a mat- 
ter of scientific certainty, and of greatest im- 
portance to you and me; for power, or life, is 



18 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

let loose in us exactly as it is in the engine. It 
is done by knowing how. Complicated as the 
human machinery certainly is, it is not so dif- 
ficult to understand and control as it would 
seem. 

If you expect to run an engine you will save 
yourself a great deal of time and trouble by ac- 
cepting without question the instruction which 
an experienced engineer can give you. Don't 
stand and argue with him about it, but go ahead 
and do what he tells you to do. He is able 
to run an engine, and run it satisfactorily; 
therefore he is a good man to listen to at the 
start. You may improve on his methods later 
on and get more speed out of the engine than 
he can, but you can not do it now; and you are 
likely to make a mess of it if you try. Put in 
practice his ideas now and evolve some of your 
own after a time. 

For the same reason I shall ask you to accept 
and act on my statements, because they have 
served me well in running my engine and be- 
cause I know they will also run yours. You may 
need something to suit the particular adjust- 
ment of your machinery, to get the very best 
out of it, but that will come to you afterward 
easily and naturally from your own thought and 
experience. 

Human engines, although differing greatly in 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 19 

detail, are all run on the same general principle, 
and it is only that which I am giving you. The 
detail you will work out for yourself. 

All railroad engineers use water for the gen- 
erating of steam. They are of one accord in 
that respect. One does not use water and an- 
other vinegar and another molasses. They all 
use water. Why? Because it is the best for 
the purpose. There are reasons why vinegar 
or molasses are not as good, but if you attempt 
to argue with an engineer and ask him why 
they are not as good, a look in his eye will pro- 
nounce you a fool for your pains, or he may 
say, brusquely, "Better go along and try 'em." 

The engineer is a practical man, you see. He 
has good, sound, solid sense. He does not 
stand mooning about the "why" and the 
"wherefore," as too many of us do, but straight- 
way goes ahead and does something and gets 
somewhere. 

ISTow, the using of water in the engine is a 
general principle. Something not to be ques- 
tioned, but put in practice. And so of the 
general principle which I would give you and 
which I ask you to accept on trust. It is this: 

In running the human engine you must turn 
on a certain current of thought, and that cur- 
rent is yours to command. 

When I hear people say that they can not 



20 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

control their thought currents I know better. I 
know they have not tried long enough or in the 
right way. 

And I want to say another thing to you which 
I hope you will accept on trust until you can 
prove it for yourself. I want to say that there 
is nothing but the Water of Divine Truth or 
True Thought which will serve you well in 
your engine. You can let in currents of 
thought which correspond to vinegar or molas- 
ses, but you will get from them only corrosion 
or stickiness instead of motive power. 

There is a True Thought concerning your- 
self, and there is also a False Thought. The 
False Thought is nothing but an illusion, and 
yet while it is in your mind it seems real, and 
you act from it as such. You think of yourself 
as weak and you act so, but you are no more 
weak than was the hypnotized subject who 
threw off six strong policemen. How did he do 
it ? Because for the moment his real strength 
was revealed to him. You have often seen the 
quotation — "As a man thinketh in his heart so 
is he." That applies to the case in hand. This 
man thought he was strong, and in consequence 
he was so. 

The same principle applies to disease of any 
kind. You may have some internal trouble, 
and you may think it is a cancer. If you think 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 21 

so strongly enough it will be a cancer. Or, on 
the other hand, you may actually have a cancer 
and if you can be made to think strongly 
enough that you have not one the cancer will 
go away. 

But, how are you to be made to think you 
have not a cancer when you have ? Ah, but have 
you? That is the point. It all depends upon 
what you regard as you. If you are your 
physical body, why then you have the cancer 
sure enough. I shall not deny it. What I do 
deny is that you are your physical body, and I 
declare instead that you are a birthless, death- 
less spiritual identity, having the power to put 
on many envelopes of flesh which you will call 
your body. No one knows how many of these 
envelopes you have had already. No one 
knows how many you will have in time to come. 
The one you have now is continually changing, 
and if it has a cancer now, it need not have 
three months hence. The length of time re- 
quired to heal it will depend upon the control 
you have over your body. 

Now listen— When I say THE CONTKOL 
YOU HAVE OVEE YOTTE BODY, does it 
not sound as though you were something above 
and superior to your body ? Else how can you 
control it? As long as you think of yourself 
as your body, or your body as yourself, you can 



22 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

not establish any claim of superiority over any 
of its states or activities or be able to bring 
them under control. 

When you say of the real self, which is you, 
that it has not a cancer you are speaking the 
truth, for the more you know of this real self 
the more strongly you will realize that it can 
not have cancer or any defect or disease and, 
as you realize this, your thought takes on a 
positive character because IT NOW IS THE 
EEAL THING and not subject to illusion. It 
is now THINKING THE GOD TKUTH, IS 
EIKED WITH THE DIVINE ENEEGY 
AND CAN HEAL YOUK BODY. 

And what is true of healing disease in the 
body is also true of healing the mind of its 
worries, its troubles, its apprehensions, its 
griefs, its weariness and all its woes. 

I can feel within myself how it is that the 
true self is not touched or hurt by any of these 
things, but the difficulty is to make my thought 
clear to others. Just as I was thinking how I 
might best express myself on the subject I 
came across the following, which seemed to 
throw a high light on my thought. It is from 
an article by M. E. Carter in The Humanitari- 
an, originally published in Mind: 

"Some years ago, while at Greenacre, Eliot, 
U. S. A., I saw a picture that impressed me 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 23 

deeply. It was painted by an idealist, a girl 
only nineteen years of age. The picture rep- 
resented a beautiful head, the face being per- 
fect in outline and color; but the large, dark 
eyes seemed to be looking far away, seeking 
with a hungry, unsatisfied expression something 
apparently unattainable. The face was inex- 
pressibly sad, with all its beauty and earnest- 
ness. Close beside this head, with a cheek al- 
most pressed against it, was another head — the 
face perfect in serenity and a study in its calm- 
ness and peace. Both were beautiful; but one 
left on the beholder a sense of hunger and anx- 
iety, while in the other there was nothing to 
desire. The picture interpreted itself as one 
looked upon it. There in graphic outline was 
the oft-repeated story of the human being not 
yet awake to its divine Self — hungry, anxious, 
sad, yearning for it knows not what; and all the 
time the divine Self, the real Self, the true be- 
ing, close at hand, waiting for recognition ! It 
is this true Self of each one of us with whom, 
sooner or later, we must become acquainted, 
and whose presence we must learn to realize 
every moment of our lives thereafter." 

Now, if you begin to argue and question the 
possibility of there being two selves and get in- 
volved in a lot of metaphysical perplexities, 
you will be like the man who spends a lot of 
time questioning whether vinegar or molasses 



24 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

will do the work of water in his engine. Don't 
waste time over that foolishness, but turn on 
the water and go ahead. 

Seek the real self, and if you do not find it, 
or even get a glimpse of it, or feel a vitalizing 
sense of its presence, if a great peace does not 
come over your spirit while your troubles melt 
into thin air and your diseases fall away like the 
old plumage from a bird in the spring — why, if 
all this does not happen, and much more that is 
good, then you can go back to metaphysical dis- 
cussion, but in my opinion you will never need 
to go back to it, for you will have found some- 
thing so much better. Instead of theorizing 
about the EEAL THING you will have found 
it. 

It will help you very much to see in mind the 
painting just mentioned with the two selves so 
well portrayed. One restless, sad, unsatisfied, 
hungry, anxious and longing for it knows not 
what, the other perfect in its serenity and a 
study in calmness and peace. And remember 
that Other Self, that Great Self, is so close, so 
close ! 

The little self compared with it is as a wave 
on the surface of the great ocean. It rises, as- 
serts itself, then seeks again its source and is 
one with it. Some writers call this the loss of 
identity. I call it the finding. The wave is not 
lost when it mingles with ocean, for does it not 
come forth again? 



LESSON III. 

In my second lesson I intended to speak of 
subconscious action, but in leading up to it I 
covered so much space that I concluded to de- 
fer the topic to this lesson. 

Various writers use the term, subconscious, 
in different ways. With some it seems to indi- 
cate, what I should call instead, the super-con- 
scious, or what Emerson called the Over-Soul. 

That is not what I mean by the sub-con- 
scious, for I would use it to denote a mental 
power governing what is known as the involun- 
tary action of the body, such as the beating of 
the heart, the circulation of the blood, diges- 
tion, or any process not immediately dependent 
on or controlled by the will. The act of walk- 
ing is largely subconscious, while the direction 
in which one walks is generally dependent on 
the will, although it often happens that when 
one goes in the same direction daily the feet 
will seem to turn corners of their own accord 
while the mind is fully occupied with other 
things. 

The subconscious mind is a bundle of habits, 
and habits of long duration, at that. The sub- 
conscious mind contracts habits of disease, that 
is a part of it gets to moving in a wrong direc- 



26 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

tion and keeps on so moving to the disturbance 
of the general harmony until something hap- 
pens to set it right, or all the other parts adjust 
themselves to the erratic action and establish a 
sort of truce among themselves, compromising 
as it were for the sake of temporary peace, 
though not for the greatest good of all con- 
cerned. 

It is well known that the different parts of 
the body will change position to make room for 
a misplaced organ, and though they could per- 
form their work much better in their own 
proper places, after a little grumbling and com- 
plaining they settle down to business in their 
new quarters and get on quite amicably, though 
there is always a lingering element of discon- 
tent. They seldom break out in open riot, but 
simply make the owner of the body in which 
they are ensconced fell somewhat uncomfort- 
able. He knows something is wrong with the 
servants in his inner chambers. He can not see 
what it is, but is made to feel that something 
is not as it should be, and there is discord in his 
house of flesh. 

The subconscious mind is really subordinate 
to the conscious mind, although it has a way 
of asserting itself and going off on its own hook 
just as all subordinates will do at times. 

One writer has ingeniously put it that the 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 27 

human organism maintains itself by holding in 
leash lower forces that are always struggling to 
get away and gain their freedom. It certainly 
looks like it, for no sooner does the spirit, 
which holds the body intact, take its departure 
than the wildest anarchy ensues, every atom 
hurrying to get away from organic control. 

It may be mere fancy on my part, but I can 
not help thinking that if we treated these atoms 
with a little more consideration we should get 
better and happier service from them, but that 
is a mere thought in passing. 

TTe have accepted the fact that somehow the 
physical economy is regulated with intelligence, 
but have not been so ready to believe that the 
regulating intelligence dwells within the organ- 
ism itself. That it does is one of the strongest 
points in our healing philosophy, and in proof 
of this let me quote from one of my own arti- 
cles on the subject : 

"The body is like a clock which has been 
wound up at some time in the past, and death 
is the running down of its mechanical action. 
The conquest of death then is the winding up 
of that clock and the process is simple when 
once learned. 

Let us see if this is not true. 

Long ago in the early beginnings of life on 
this planet that little protoplasmic form, the 



28 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

amoeba, had a desire for food. Impelled by 
this desire it floated here and there "until it 
came in contact with the object of its desires 
when it folded itself about that object, ab- 
sorbed that which it could assimilate and re- 
leased the balance. As time went on its desire 
grew stronger and stronger, and its need for 
more varied food greater, so that instead of let- 
ting its prey go quickly it held on to it, so as to 
extract, if possible, still more sustenance. This 
resulted finally in a settled contractile effort 
which converted the flat surface of the amoeba 
into a tube-like formation, the first nucleus of 
a stomach. 

But this little stomach could not digest all 
that it stowed away and would probably 
have had a severe touch of indigestion had it 
not in time gotten rid of that portion of its 
food which could not possibly be assimilated, 
therefore ducts or channels were formed for 
liquid and solid matter to pass out of the little 
organism which no longer needed them. These 
ducts were primitive bowels and kidneys. To 
supply other needs, eyes, ears, heart, lungs and 
other organs were formed. 

These organs owe their origin and growth to 
conscious action on the part of the individual 
projecting them. No matter how low the form 
of life, if it has any knowledge of external ob- 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 29 

jects it possesses consciousness, for to be con- 
scious means simply to know, the word "con- 
scious" being from the Latin conscius, from con 
and scire to know. The amoeba was conscious, 
because it knew of the presence of its prey, 
and it had volition because it willed to grasp 
that prey. It acted then with conscious volition 
and in this way it projected the organs which 
it afterwards developed. 

But as its desires grew apace it dropped the 
control of the first established activities, be- 
cause it could do so by virtue of mechanical 
law. If you set a ball rolling it is carried 
forward by the momentum given by your hand, 
which is the agent of your conscious volition, 
and the ball rolls on until the force transmitted 
is spent. By the same law the mechanical action 
which was set up at first in the body by con- 
scious volition continues until the force im- 
parted to it is exhausted. 

In this way our bodies are running as the 
result of an action set up long ago. As we go 
from childhood to old age we get farther and 
farther from the original impelling force until 
finally the mechanism runs down, just as a 
clock would with no hand to wind it. 

But just so surely as a clock can renew its 
action just so surely can the human body do 
the same and escape that cessation of activity 
which we know as death. 



30 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

What we must learn, then, is how to wind 
the clock and also how to regulate its ma- 
chinery." 

I will tell you how to do this. 

The machinery in the subconscious mind is 
not like wood or steel and so you regulate it 
with different tools. The tools you must use are 
words either in thought or spoken. You can 
also use emotion, which is sometimes utterly 
without words. 

If people understood this better they would 
know why a Mental Healer tells a patient that 
he is well and strong when he is evidently sick 
and weak. If the subconscious mind were not 
under the control of the conscious it would not 
do the slightest good to make such an affirma- 
tion. It would produce no more effect than a 
pebble thrown against a stone wall. 

That it does produce an effect is due to the 
fact that the subconscious mind is sensitive, 
vibrating substance, mind substance, and when 
it is touched by a living word it moves in ac- 
cordance with that word. 

Living words are words of health, words of 
success, words of good cheer and the subcon- 
scious mind responds to them by producing bet- 
ter circulation, better heart beats, better mus- 
cular and nerve action, better sight, better 
hearing and better digestion. 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 31 

On the other hand, dead words, such as: "Oh, 
I am so sick, so miserable, so poor, so unfortu- 
nate and so hopeless/' all have a depressing 
effect and lower the tone of the whole system, 
producing in every detail the very opposite of 
the live words. 

Not once alone in the history of the world 
was the Word made flesh, but every day and 
every hour and every moment is it occurring. 

The Word is always being made flesh and 
happy he who chooses the living Word. 

If I tell you that you are well when you 
think you are as sick as you can possibly be and 
live, it will seem to you like a baseless and un- 
reasonable assertion, but it is not, and why ? 

Well, it is not baseless or unreasonable from 
the fact that I am not talking about that physi- 
cal mood which constitutes your present state. 
If I see you in a rage at a certain moment and 
yet know you to be naturally a person of equa- 
ble and sweet temper, shall I pronounce you a 
savage brute ? Shall I take this ephemeral state 
to be you ? You know I would not. 

Very well, your sickness is just as much a 
passing mood of the body, and I take my firm 
stand on what I know to be true of the real 
you. I speak from that standpoint, and thus 
my statement is true. 

You know there is a real you, which is back 



32 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

of all moods, all experience and all change. 
You feel it to be so. 

I know that much, and I know something 
more, something of great importance to yon, 
something that will serve to lift your head 
above many a trial, many a sickness, many a 
loss. 

It is this: The real you is a Great Self, as 
glorious as an angel, as radiant as the sun. 
Some have called it The Shining One, and I 
think that a very beautiful name. 

But why does anything so perfect find diffi- 
culty in expression, and if it is so great and glo- 
rious, why does it manifest all these scars and 
blemishes, these deformities, diseases and sor- 
rows? 

For the same reason that a shadow encom- 
passes the earth when clouds get between it and 
the sun. The sun shines just the same, though 
the earth knows it not. 

There is a state in consciousness which cor- 
responds to the earth in shadow. In that state 
we do not see The Shining One. It does not 
penetrate the clouds. It can not manifest where 
the atmosphere is not a good medium, but it still 
shines on, pure, serene and perfect. 

It is hard to prove in so many words that 
which the soul knows to be true, but there is no 
truth of which I am more fully convinced than 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. & 

that of the Perfect Indwelling Self as a radiant 
centre of life. I am also convinced that this 
Perfect Self, acting on the conscious mind and 
through it on the subconscious, will dissipate 
the clouds of disease, of trouble, of poverty and 
all that offends, leaving only that which is beau- 
tiful and sweet and good as the bodily expres- 
sion of The Shining One. 

I said in the preceding lesson that I must ask 
the student to take some statements merely on 
the strength of my assertion, not that I would 
be dogmatic, but because I know so much time 
is wasted on metaphysical argument which 
might be at once utilized for practical ends. I 
cite again the case of a man who would be an 
engineer, and say that he must in the beginning 
accept and act upon the instruction of an engi- 
neer of some experience. 

All I ask is that vou who read the^e lessons 
shall try the effect upon the subconscious mind 
of vigorous, positive, living words. Even 
though you are in the midst of poverty, sick- 
ness and sorrow, affirm the opposite. Say with 
all the earnestness you can muster, I am rich, 
I am well, I am happy. Say it again and again, 
though all things conspire to give the lie to 
your words. If you do this faithfully, just as 
sure as you live, the words you thus utter will 
fall into the subconscious mind and become 



34 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

there a power to work for good in all your 
conditions. 

If you throw bicarbonate of soda into an 
acid you correct that acid. By a law as certain 
and unvarying you can sweeten by affirmation 
the sourest states of mind, body or environ- 
ment. 

I have proved this over and over and over 
again in my own life, and in that of others, 
and, knowing what it has done for me and for 
them, I ask you also to see what it will do for 
you. It will cost nothing but a persistent ef- 
fort on your part and that effort is good for 
you. You have therefore nothing to lose in 
the attempt. You risk nothing and you have 
bo much, so very much to gain. 



LESSON IV. 

In my last lesson I said something of the 
subconscious mind and its processes. In this 
lesson I wish to say more about it, for it is a 
most important factor in the production or 
cure of disease. To most people the term "sub- 
conscious mind" conveys but scant meaning, 
and even psychologists know very little about 
it, but we know, or at least a little reflection 
will lead us to the conclusion, that there are 
mental activities which seem to be carried on 
without direct volition, or any consciousness 
that they are occurring. 

When you were a little child, just learning 
to walk, you had to balance yourself very care- 
fully on one foot while you lifted the other 
and took a step forward. Sometimes you did 
not succeed in maintaining your balance, but 
after many trials it became easier and soon you 
were able to walk, but even then you could not 
run, or play leap frog. Those were later ac- 
complishments. The first effort in walking led 
up to these later efforts. In the meantime the 
first effort had become a habit, a something 
which could be done without constant care and 
supervision. 

Xow you can walk and think about something 



36 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

else all the time. If every day you go to busi- 
ness by the same route, after a while you will 
not need to think about your course, for you 
will turn corners uncoi*sciously, and finally 
bring up at your office, hardly knowing how 
you got there. Possibly you may have been 
deep in thought all the while. Your walking, 
as mere muscular activity, was subconscious, 
and that which sent your steps in one direction 
was also subconscious. 

Life is made up of these subconscious activi- 
ties. They start in the conscious mind and 
I pass thence to the subconscious. Prof. James, 
of Harvard, in his Psychology, says something 
to the effect that art would be impossible were 
it not for these subconscious processes. And 
you can see for yourself that this is so, for if 
the mind had always to busy itself with every 
detail in art which at first it apprehends with 
care and precision, there would never be free, 
bold strokes, or graceful outlines. All would 
be cramped and labored, like the writing of a 
child. The free sweep comes from the earlier 
detail. 

And what is true of the subconscious in the 
study of art is true of it in all study, even in 
the study of bettering our physical and mental 
states. 

This brings me to what I have to say. I 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 37 

want to show you as simply as I can how it is 
that thoughts of health produce health and 
thoughts of success produce success. I mean 
holding in mind a thought in the form of an 
affirmation. 

For instance, in our Success Centre, which 
is composed of those among my friends 
who believe with me that man has his centre 
in Divinity, and continually radiates from that 
centre, we express our belief in this formula : 

"I am open on my inner side to the inex- 
haustible ocean of Divine Love and Power. I 
flow forth from it and am one with it. All suc- 
cess is mine through the working of this Power. 
I shall succeed in all my undertakings." 

Now, what is the advantage in holding this in 
thought day after day and month after month? 
What, I ask, is the advantage ? And what does 
it mean? Is it a sort of hocus-pocus, magic 
or witchcraft ? 

I will tell you what it is — A simple, healthy, 
hearty and perfectly natural observance of a 
law of mind, the law which I have just been 
trying to explain, the law by which a thought 
held persistently in the conscious mind ulti- 
mately descends into the subconscious area and 
sets up an activity there. 

In my early study of the piano I was an im- 
patient pupil. I could not understand why I 



38 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

was kept on scale and arpeggio when I thought 
I could learn to execute them just as well by 
taking them as they occurred in a piece of 
music. My teacher knew better, and he said — 
You must make these things a habit so that 
you execute them unconsciously, for after a 
time, when you have other things to consider, 
you can not, at the same time, give your 
thought to technique in detail. Later I saw 
the necessity for this, but I could not under- 
stand at the time. 

If you wish to be healthy and carry about 
with you the magnetic aura of sweetness, good- 
ness and power — in other words, if you wish to 
be a "radiant success" shining with the joy of 
accomplishment — you must hold in mind the 
thoughts that make such attainment possible. 
A fleeting thought will have but little effect in 
converting you into the ideal that you would be, 
but a thought held, and held, and held, in time 
becomes a part of the living you. If the thought 
is true and noble the subconscious mind moves 
to the measure of truth and nobility. If the 
thought is crafty and mean, the subconscious 
mind moves to that measure. As it moves it 
keeps registering its processes in the glance of 
your eye, the turn of your head, the movement 
of your hand, the tone of your voice, and in 
many another form of your expression. 



MEXTAL HEALIXG MADE PLAIN. 39 

At the same time the subconscious mind is 
creating your physical conditions to the meas- 
ure of your thought. It does this so silently, 
so secretly that you have no idea of what it is 
doing. You will understand better how this 
can be when you realize that you can pursue a 
long train of thought and be so absorbed in it 
that you will not be conscious of yourself as 
thinking. That consciousness will dawn upon 
you when you "come to yourself/' when you 
get to the end of the train of thought. You 
were working all the time, and that work was 
in the mind, still the mind was not conscious of 
its own work going on within. 

It is in something such a way that the sub- 
conscious mind pursues its activities without 
our cognizance. It is also far-reaching and ex- 
tends bevond the bounds we have set for it in 
our ignorance. It reaches out and works for 
our good or ill, according to the nature of the 
thought which we have set in operation. 

And now let us see how it is that the formula 
used in our "Success Centre" can be of use in 
bringing about more satisfactory states of mind, 
body and surroundings. 

In the first place we say: "I am open on my 
inner side to the inexhaustible ocean of Divine 
Love and Power. I am one with it, and flow 
forth from it." This affirms that limitations are 



40 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

swept away, that man is no longer to be con- 
sidered as a little, separate something, made 
just so big and no bigger, created once upon a 
time and not to be re-created. It means instead 
that man is a flowing life, always flowing forth 
from the great Eternal. It means that he can 
be re-created every day, every moment. It 
means that as the ocean of Divine Power is 
inexhaustible, man's life or power is the same. 
This affirmation takes the mind out of the old 
sense of limitation into a new sense of free- 
dom. It makes one breathe more freely and 
realize his own boundless possibilities. 

To affirm it once or twice will not change 
mental habits fully, but to affirm it day after 
day and month after month makes the mind all 
over new. The subconscious mind then takes 
hold of the new habit of thought and weaves it 
into every tissue. Change and improvement is 
wrought everywhere throughout the body. Not 
only that, but the subconscious mind, which 
works, as I have said, in broad areas of which 
the conscious mind knows nothing, begins to 
reach out and open doors and make opportuni- 
ties so that the unfolding self may have room 
for expression. When the sense of limitation 
is gone the germ of power within the human 
soul is ready to push out and make itself known 
and felt in the world of externals. The con- 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 41 

scions mind plants the seed (of affirmation) in 
the soil of the subconscious, and there it de- 
velops. The seed is the thought of freedom, 
of constantly renewing life, and the seed brings 
forth that which is like itself. 

Then the formula goes on to affirm: "All 
success is mine through the working of this 
Power. I shall succeed in all my undertak- 
ings." 

This hardly needs an explanation, for it fol- 
lows that if man is constantly flowing forth in 
a stream of life and power he must have suc- 
cess in whatever he undertakes. As I have often 
said — to be here at all, just to live, means suc- 
cess. So far as it goes, even though it may not 
be very far, it is achievement. It may be a 
negative sort of success just as 20 degrees 
Fahrenheit is not 60, and yet the 20 is not Zero. 

There are some strange laws of mind which 
we are just beginning to know something 
about. One of these laws is — We can be what 
we wish to be — and another — We become what 
we wish to be by affirming that we are it al- 
ready. 

That last statement seems to contradict it- 
self, does it not ? How can one wish to be that 
which he is already, or how can one be already 
that which he wishes to be ? 

Self-contradictory on the face of it, but not 



42 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

so when you get at the real meaning. The 
"what you are" refers to your potential or un- 
expressed self, while the "what you wish to be" 
refers to the actual or expressed self. 

You have it in you to be great in some walk 
in life, in some special calling, something for 
which you are peculiarly fitted, and you have it 
all in you now, rolled up like a bud waiting to 
be unfolded. That is "what you are." The un- 
folding of the bud into the flower is — "what 
you wish to be." Is not that clear enough ? 

So you can affirm in perfect truth that you 
are what you wish to be, and this affirmation 
acts just as the sun does on the seed buried in 
the earth. The sun calls it to come forth, and 
it comes, not as the brown seed does it come, 
but as a new creature. 

You can go on building and rebuilding your- 
self into new and varied life, by the power of 
affirmation, to the highest measure of your 
ideals. Then take heart, for the remedy for 
all your ills lies within you, and in you, because 
you are in God. 



LESSON V. 

There is a vast storehouse from which we 
draw our thoughts. It is as vast as humanity 
itself and open to every one of us. This store- 
house was called by Emerson the Over Soul, and 
perhaps no better term could be applied to it, 
but for purposes of distinction I shall call it the 
Super-Conscious Mind. I call it this because I 
wish to show you what I understand to be the 
difference between the Super-Conscious and the 
Sub-Conscious Mind. 

That is a somewhat difficult undertaking, es- 
pecially as no one knows what the Super-Con- 
scious Mind is. But, for that matter, we are 
almost as much in the dark concerning the Con- 
scious and Sub-Conscious Mind, although by 
observation and experience we do know some- 
thing of their modes of action. 

But we do not even know that the Super-Con- 
scious Mind has action. Some occultists say that 
it has not, for it is the world of the potential 
or the unexpressed in contradistinction to that 
which is actual (act-ual) or expressed. 

I shall not, however, sidetrack into any field 
of speculation, because I have found that a 
matter of this sort may be argued forever with- 
out getting at any practical result. 



44 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

What we want to get at is this — Is there a 
Super-Conscious Mind? If so — How are we 
related to it ? If it is a storehouse and we can 
draw from it — What can we draw, and how ? 

A thought comes into your mind. Where 
does it come from? Some other mind? Yes, 
possibly. But where did it come from in the 
beginning? A coin may pass from hand to 
hand in the course of its circulation, but origi- 
nally it came from the mint. Still further back 
it came from a mine, and at one stage it may 
have been in the form of an ether; but at any 
rate, here it is in circulation. I hold a coin in 
my hand. It has come to me from another 
hand, and yet that other hand did not make 
it. It simply passed it along. Our thoughts 
pass from one to another in similar manner, but 
that does not account for their source. Where 
do they come from in the beginning ? 

Why, they come from the Super-Conscious 
Mind. What they are like before they are born 
into the Conscious Mind we know not, and it 
matters not. It only matters that we get these 
thoughts and that they prove to be the right 
sort of thoughts to work out our health and 
happiness. 

We want something which shall feed the ma- 
chinery of life and make it speed on merrily, 
singing as it goes, instead of creaking, groaning, 
and finally stopping entirely. 



MENTAL HEALIXG MADE PLAIN. 45 

We have reached a place in intelligence 
where we know quite well what we want from 
the storehouse, but we doubt if we can get it. 
The doubt paralyzes our effort and we do not 
try to get what we want. We know that 
thought pours in upon the mind in a steady 
stream, but it seems to come in "hit or miss" 
fashion. There does not seem to be any law 
about it. 

Ah, there is just the mistake we have made, 
for there is a law about it. Every thought that 
comes to us is drawn as unerringly as one chem- 
ical atom is drawn to another. 

A thought is drawn to the mind by the pres- 
ence of something in that mind to which it is 
related and which attracts it. We will not go 
away back to a possible beginning and ask how 
the first something came there to attract the 
second something, for that would be getting too 
metaphysical. That would be asking why you 
are you and not somebody else, and, as Sothern 
would say — That is one of the things no fellow 
can find out. 

~No, we will just start where we find our- 
selves, with the mind just as it is, and see what 
it does with the Super-Conscious storehouse 
and its contents. 

It draws on this storehouse and it draws that 
which is attracted to it by law. 



46 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

If the thought is on art then it draws that 
which relates to art. If it is on music then that 
which relates to music, and so on. Whatever 
one undertakes to do and lets his thought dwell 
upon, to that is he continually drawing fresh 
stores from the Super-Conscious Mind. 

The old idea was that each person had a 
certain amount of talent or genius, and that 
beyond that limit he could not go. 

The new idea, and a blessed idea it is, too, is 
that there is no such grudging stint given out, 
while the balance is forever held away from 
him who desires it. 'No, the limit is swept away 
and man is coming to know that he stands at 
the open door of an Infinite Supply. 

When I hear anyone saying — The desire of 
my life is to become an artist, but I am too old 
now to begin — I think of my mother, who be- 
gan the study when she was about fifty, and 
became a very fine artist at the age of sixty. 

If you desire intensely to do anything in the 
way of achievement, know that you can do it, 
no matter what your age or your drawbacks. 

If the desire of your heart is to heal the sick, 
it shows that somewhere hidden in you is the 
power to do it. Just open your mind to the 
Super-Conscious and let that flow in which is 
allied to you and which will unfold your power. 

We are at all times open to the Super-Con- 
scious, but we can increase our receptivity by 



MENTAL HEALIXG MADE PLAIN. 47 

an act of the will, by desiring to be receptive. 
We can also by an act of the will exclude 
from the mind all that is extraneous or foreign 
to our purpose just as one would weed a flower- 
bed of all but that which he wished to cultivate. 

The healing thought comes down from the 
Super-Conscious, hence the power of those 
beautiful words: 

"Lo, the healing power descending from with- 1 
in, calming the enfevered brain and spreading 
peace among the grieving nerves." 

If you are suffering intense pain either of 
mind or body, repeat these lines and desire in- 
tensely that the healing power shall descend. 
Then wait and fully expect that it will^ When 
it comes it will seem like a fine shower falling 
gently upon your fevered brain, while little 
rivulets of heavenly peace course their way 
along the troubled nerves and quiet their 
grieving. 

I know this to be so from actual and repeat- 
ed experience. My readers have only to prove 
it for themselves. 

The Super-Conscious is, I believe, the realm 
of the Divine. How then does it happen that 
thoughts of worry, of hatred, of dishonesty 
come to us from that source ? 

They do not. When a bright, new coin 
comes from the mint it is quite different from 



48 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

that same coin after it has been long in circula- 
tion and has become worn and tarnished. 

When we get one of these worn thoughts, 
we may know it has been too long in circulation, 
perhaps so long that it is worthless. It no longer 
bears the stamp which gave it value. All that 
has been worn off or defaced. Then let us stop 
its circulation right here and now, and go 
straight to the mint for new coin. 

But the analogy is imperfect, and I will not 
follow it further. No material symbol can con- 
vey to you what it means to open the mind to 
the influx of the Super-Conscious. It means 
freshness and richness and fullness of thought. 
It means a rush of new purpose. It means a 
great tide of invigoration. Oh, it means every- 
thing good and delightful, my friends. 

You can not remain sick if you are thus re- 
newed and regenerated; you can not remain 
poor; you can not remain unhappy. 

Since I discovered for my very self this truth 
and have made it work in my own life, I have 
lost my desire for metaphysical argument. I 
now know that you can discuss metaphysical 
distinctions forever and not find health and 
happiness. In fact, it seems to me that you get 
further from them all the while. 

Bring home all your powers. Concentrate 
them in the one effort to draw from this one 
source of supply. It is within, and it is also 



MENTAIi HEALING MADE PLAIN. 49 

above. At least, so it seems. That is the direc- 
tion your mind takes when thinking of it. Pray 
if you will. Why not ? For is not prayer the 
soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed ? 

When you want anything in the material 
world you reach out your hand for it. This 
you can not do in the mental world. There you 
reach out with your desire, and it is just as 
effective. Yes, it is more so. — - 

You desire only good. If you desire anything 
else, it is only a mistake of your intelligence, 
which will soon be corrected. You desire only 
good and that exists for you in the Super-Con- 
scious Realm. There is an open door from it in- 
to your mind. You can go in and out, bringing 
what you wish. How can you call yourself 
sick and miserable and poor with all life's rich- 
est treasures at your very door ? ~ 

Don't lie down like a beggar and whine. Get 
up and clothe yourself in purple and fine linen, 
for all are princes who enter the Realm of the 
Super-Conscious Mind. ^ 



LESSON VI. 

When people ask me how mental healing is 
done, I find it as difficult to answer as though 
they had asked me how to execute Beethoven's 
SonataPathetique. Both involve so much. Both 
are built up out of details laid in orderly se- 
quence, one upon another, and in an attempt to 
see what the building means, and how it is ac- 
complished, one must trace the details. 

In mental healing these details are mental 
states which follow one upon another until that 
state is reached from which the healing vibra- 
tion can go forth. I am going now to outline 
some of those states, drawing on my own con- 
sciousness for the purpose, and observe, I am 
going to tell you how I do healing and not how 
some one else does it. I do not intend to stand 
sponsor for the profession as a whole nor for 
any branch of it, but simply for myself. 

There is a knowledge that precedes experi- 
ence which we call intuitional or transcenden- 
tal", and there is the same knowledge after it has 
been verified and made practical by personal ex- 
perience. It is the latter which I wish to give 
you in these lessons, and in order to give you 
my own experience from the beginning I am 
going back to the time when I first heard of 
mental healing. . 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 51 

It was in Chicago, at the time when the Eddy 
movement was first making itself known there. 
Many of my friends were interested, but I felt 
utterly indifferent, although I was in a wretched 
state, both mentally and physically. One day a 
Christian Scientist took luncheon at the place 
where I was boarding, and I sat in silent scorn 
during the entire meal while she made the best 
of her opportunity in trying to convert every 
one at table. I think she succeeded with 
some, but she only aroused in me a thorough 
antagonism. Once or twice I caught her eye, 
if one can be said to catch an eye that has not 
a ray of human interest in its cold and staring 
surface. It was an eye that had no depths, and 
I was afterwards told that such was the effect 
when one withdrew entirely from the illusion 
of "Mortal Mind" and became one with "Divine 
Mind." This is not intended as a reflection upon 
Christian Science, but to show that some of its 
disciples are mistaken in their application of its 
principles. 

But, as I said, I caught her eye, only to let 
it go again on the instant. I did not want to 
hold it, for it made me shudder, and I thought 
I would rather die than to be called back to 
health by anything stored behind that eye. 

I also looked critically at her snow white 
hair and her wrinkles, not knowing enough of 
the principles of Christian Science to under- 



52 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

stand that she was in the pin feather stage of 
the Divine Manifestation. Somehow her words 
and her appearance were in such violent con- 
tradiction that I really felt the poor creature 
to be slightly crazed, but the incident made an 
impression upon me and had its use in my ex- 
perience several years afterward when I be- 
came interested in the study of mental healing. 
I then remembered the uncanny influence of 
those eyes and determined never to get so far 
away from the human as to be devoid of sym- 
pathy. Naturally this drew me to the other 
extreme, and I gave out so much that I be- 
came depleted. My patients grew fat and rosy 
while I grew thin and pale. Then I saw my 
mistake, and little by little I learned how to let 
my heart go out in love and sympathy to the 
suffering, while at the same time my intellect 
saw clearly the illusory nature of that suffer- 
ing, and that it had no place in true being. • 

But to go back to the Chicago incident, it 
was certainly one of the details necessary to the 
building of a state of consciousness in which it 
was possible to do mental healing. At the time 
it meant nothing to me but an unpleasant epi- 
sode. Now, as I look back, it means much more. 
It was really my first lesson in mental healing 
and I did not know it. 

Time went on and my health grew worse and 
worse until every resource having been ex- 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 53 

hausted I was persuaded to take a course of 
mental treatment, and slowly, very slowly, I 
found my way back to health and strength. 
Then my interest was thoroughly aroused and 
I determined to make a thorough study of the 
subject. Observation soon taught me that heal- 
ing was not confined to one school or one 
method, hence I inferred there must be some 
general principle underlying all and common to 
all. What was it? How should I find it? I 
studied on and on, ever hopeful and confident 
of the result, but often confused by the chaotic 
jumble of statements made by different 
teachers. 

I went into Theosophy, not because of its 
therapeutic value, but because of its exposition 
of occult laws. Then I took up Hypnotism, 
Mental Suggestion, Faith Cure, Christian Heal- 
ing, Divine Science, Christian Science, Mental 
Science, and, in fact, everything that had a 
possible bearing upon my one, all absorbing 
theme. So great was my enthusiasm that the 
days seemed too short for my purpose, and I 
pressed the long hours of the night into my 
service, and, strange to say, I found the wake- 
ful hours of night more restful than those of 
sleep. 

Finally there came a night which I shall 
never forget as it held for me a new and won- 
derful experience. While perfectly wide 
awake and thinking out a problem, I suddenly 



54 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

found myself standing in the middle of the 
room in what seemed a substantial body, while 
my physical form lay stretched upon the bed. 
My arms hung by my side and when I lifted 
and folded them I felt the actual resistance of 
my body and the pressure of my arms against 
it, so that I thought — What sort of a self is 
this ? Can it be a spiritual body ? It certainly 
is not like what I have supposed spirit to be. 
Just then a three-tongued flame of a deep and 
beautiful red of peculiar color, such as I had 
never seen before, appeared close to my left 
temple. I then heard myself saying, not volun- 
tarily, but as though something spoke through 
me— THIS IS THE HEALING POWEK. As 
I uttered these words the flame came nearer 
and touched me on the temple. Instantly great 
throbs of something that seemed like electric 
fire coursed through me from head to foot. It 
was like a wave of life, of wondrous life such as 
I had never known, and I thought — This is 
Life itself — I have touched Life. I have been 
dead before and for the first time I know how 
life feels. 

Then suddenly I was back again in my physi- 
cal body on the bed, but the same wave was 
passing through me. For hours I lay awake 
thinking over the strange experience, and dur- 
ing those hours all fear of death left me for- 
ever. Indeed, I seemed to have passed through 



MEXTAL HEALIXG MADE PLAIX. 55 

what is called death, and to have come forth 
in my spiritual body, finding it more real than 
the physical. 

This was not a dream nor a vision. It was 
an actual, living experience, and I was as wholly 
awake as I am at this moment while writing 
these lines. 

Moreover, it was an experience which pro- 
duced a change in my consciousness, so that I 
have never been the same since. It also changed 
my physical conditions. I felt like a new 
creature in both mind and body. 

I have since discovered that these changes in 
consciousness take place at intervals all along 
the path of development and that it is as im- 
possible, while in an earlier state to understand 
a later, as it would be for one of the primitive 
forms of life to understand or enter into the 
mind of a human being. The difference is not 
so great possibly, but it is very great, indeed, 
and each advance makes one feel as though sud- 
denly lifted into a new order of being. 

The strangest thing about it all is that one 
may go on blindly and mistakenly, following a 
road which seems to lead nowhere in particu- 
lar, and yet, all the while be nearing the place 
of a higher unfoldment. If only the purpose 
be earnest and sincere, he who seeks will find. 

It is these states of consciousness which 
come later which are difficult to explain to the 



56 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

beginner. There are states so high in their vi- 
bration that no word of healing need be spoken. 
Jesus was in this state at times, when the heal- 
ing power emanated from even the hem of his 
garment. At other times he found it neces- 
sary to speak the word. When he was in the 
higher state he was in the Christ consciousness, 
and that state is not too high for any of us to 
attain, if we may believe his words: "The 
works that I do ye shall do also." 

Do not think that because your mental sky is 
gray and leaden to-day, and because you may 
have been in this state for years, that it must 
continue always. Believe me when I say that 
you can enter new worlds one after another 
within your own mind, and find each one fairer 
and brighter than the one preceding. 

In my last lesson I spoke of the healing 
power as descending like a cooling shower and 
in this I speak of it as a fire. This looks like 
a discrepancy, but it is not. I use the word fire, 
not to indicate heat as we understand it in a 
material sense, but as it conveys the idea of 
vitality, of life. Electric fire seems to mean 
something quite different from fire in the usual 
sense. An electric fire, for instance, might be 
intensely vitalizing, and yet fall like a cooling 
shower. 

We are obliged to take literally from the ma- 
terial world the terms we apply to spiritual 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 57 

things, but the mind which is awakening to the 
inner life will always transcend the symbolic 
term and know the thing itself in its true 
reality. 

As you enter one new world after another 
in your consciousness you will look back upon 
this present state from which you will then 
have emerged, and wonder how you could ever 
have been held within its confines. Somewhere 
I have seen a pretty picture of a fluffy little 
chick looking down upon its broken shell and 
saying: "Did I ever come out of that?" The 
mental state which you are in now, will some 
day be to you the broken shell and you will 
look down incredulously upon it, saying: "Did 
I ever come out of that ?" 



LESSON VII. 

When I began the study of mental healing, 
I imagined it was something to be acquired 
after the manner of arithmetic, geography, 
chemistry or any other of the studies which we 
pursue in the ordinary course of education. I 
expected to get hold of rules such as one finds 
in grammar or mathematics. I procured course 
after course of instruction in order to discover 
these rules or some exact method by which 
healing was to be accomplished. Of course I 
was disappointed. The secret might be an open 
one, but nowhere did it seem revealed to my 
waiting eyes. Each writer in his or her fash- 
ion seemed bent on revolutionizing my ideas in- 
stead of giving me anything practical. This 
made me impatient, for I wanted to get hold 
of something as definite as a mathematical 
statement, which I could work out and prove 
as I would a sum. 

I expect you are all seeking the same thing, 
friends, and I want to tell you right now that 
you will not find it. ~No one can tell you how 
to do mental healing by rule, as you would 
make a cake or put up a doctor's prescription, 
for it is something which can not be done in 
purely mechanical fashion. In this sense it is 
more of an art than a science. To be sure, 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 59 

science is the basis of art and without it art 
would be impossible; still science is merely 
mechanical and coldly exact, while art is 
spiritual, creative and free. Bound only 
by laws of its own, it juts out over science 
in boldest abandon. Apparently without sup- 
port, it has an inner force which counteracts 
gravitation and holds it well poised between 
earth and heaven without the danger of a 
tumble. 

You may teach a student the mixing of pig- 
ments, the laws of perspective and the handling 
of the brush, but all this will not make him an 
artist, for, unless he has within him the spir- 
itual and creative force, he will, with all your 
teaching, produce nothing but mechanical 
daubs. 

It is on this principle that all the best teach- 
ers of the art of mental healing attempt to 
wake within you the spirit of the thing instead 
of giving you mechanical rules. They may seem 
to be accomplishing nothing, but they are doing 
the one thing needful. 

If, for instance, you have ideas that are un- 
true concerning yourself and your relation to 
the world about you, those ideas must be 
changed. This unsettles you and you feel all 
torn up for a time. Your mental soil has been 
ploughed up for the planting of a new seed, 



60 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

and although the agitation may not be agree- 
able, it is certainly necessary. 

The ploughing and the planting are the me- 
chanical part, and that is where the science 
comes in, but a little later art springs up and 
creates as it will. If it does not, your seeds are 
dead, for until there is new life there is no 
proof that your ploughing or your planting 
have been well done. 

Psychologists tell us that ideas organize 
themselves within the mind with a dominant 
idea as a ruler. This produces a certain state 
of consciousness. But, as in external govern- 
ment, every now and then a ruler is deposed, 
so it is with the government in the idea world 
within. The dominant idea gets deposed and 
a new dominant takes its place. This, as you 
can imagine, creates confusion and disorder for 
a time, but ultimately ends in a new order. 
This new order is a change in consciousness 
and with every such change there comes a new 
vibratory action. There is always an unseen 
current going out from each one of us and it 
is the sum of what we are. It changes as we 
change, and is as real as any part of us though 
it is invisible and intangible to all but the most 
sensitive persons who come in touch with it. 

This vibratory current is called the human 
aura, as many of you doubtless know. Some 
time ago, when Mrs. Annie Besant was in this 



1 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 61 

country, she exhibited photographs showing 
how this aura appeared in different mental 
states. In health, lines were seen going 
straight out from the body. In disease, these 
lines drooped and were entangled in a state of 
confusion and disorder. In anger, they looked 
like forked lightning and were of a lurid color. 
In peace and love, they w T ere gently undulating 
and of a soft and beautiful rose color. 

These photographs did not actually prove 
to my mind the existence of the aura, but it 
seemed reasonable to suppose that there might 
be something of the kind. Some time after- 
ward there came to me something in the way of 
proof. It came when I was looking into 
Spiritualism and it came in this way. I had 
heard of an excellent medium in 2\Tew York 
City, and went with two friends to one of his 
seances. We were entirely unknown to the 
medium, and it was the first seance we had ever 
attended. Including ourselves there were just 
seventeen persons present and we sat in a 
semi-circle or a sort of horseshoe, the medium 
sitting at the open end. In giving his tests the 
medium designated each person by a number- 
He gave test after test, but none to our party r 
and I was beginning to think that the whole 
thing was prearranged by the medium and a 
number of confederates, in order to gather in 
the credulous, when, to my great surprise, my 



62 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

number was called by the medium who sat with 
his eyes tightly closed in a strong light through- 
out the entire seance. My number was called 
and I responded: "Is it IV The medium an- 
swered: "Yes, I mean you. You help people 
through the mind. I see straight lines going 
out from you full of power. You carry about 
with you health, strength and joy, and they go 
out from you in any direction where you turn 
your thought. These straight lines remind me 
of the rays of the sun, they are so bright and 
full of life. You help people so much that 
everyone is glad when you come and sorry when 
you go. And you do not need to say a word, 
for your presence is enough in itself. Those 
rays go out and touch people with new life, 
even when you are silent. " 

This, coming from an entire stranger, who 
could not possibly know anything of my work 
in mental therapeutics, seemed to me a strong 
proof that our mental states do produce an 
aura which is felt by others even when it is not 
seen as it was by this medium. 

Later, I had another proof, for these strong 
lines proceeding from my early enthusiasm 
were destined to lose their force and fall in 
chaos about me, and in the darkness of my de- 
spair I thought they had fallen forever. It was 
when my husband died after a violent illness of 
three days. Apparently in vigorous health, he 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 63 

was suddenly prostrated like a strong tree in 
the path of a cyclone, and I, too, was swept 
from my feet by the same force, so that I could 
do nothing. This was a hard experience, for 
besides the loss of my husband my hold on 
mental healing seemed to have gone forever. I 
still believed in it, but I said — It is for others 
and not for me. I can never take it up again. 
Life was blank, and I had but one thought, one 
wish, and that was to get some word from be- 
hind the veil where my loved one was hidden. 
On this thought intent I went again to the me- 
dium in New York and had a private interview. 
His first words were : a O, heavy, heavy, heavy ! 
If I could give you wings so that you could fly 
away from it all what a gift it would be, would 
it not ?" He said nothing of straight lines, or 
rays from the sun going out from me, then. 
All was dark, heavy, discordant and depressing. 
This showed how my aura had changed, but it 
was not to remain so. 

Shortly after the death of my husband a 
friend came in and asked me to treat her baby 
which had been poisoned by milk that had stood 
too long in the sterilizer. The child was vomit- 
ing a green slime, and in a very dangerous con- 
dition. I remember how I looked up at her 
with heavy lidded eyes and said: "O, how can 
you ask me? Surely I can not help your 
baby when I have lost the one in all the world 



64 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

whom I would have saved if I could. No> I 
can never heal anyone again for I have lost 
the power. " 

But my friend persisted. She reminded me 
of what I had done for the child on previous 
occasions, and ended by saying: "If you will 
only make the effort, perhaps the power will 
return to you/' and looking at me imploringly, 
with great tears in her eyes, she said: "O, do 
please try." 

It ended by my putting on my hat and going 
with her, but very reluctantly. When I took 
the child in my arms I felt an utter deadness, 
not even pity for the poor little suffering thing, 
and that was strange, for my sympathies had 
always been quick and tender and by far the 
larger part of me. But way down under all 
this deadness there was a small, faint effort to 
help the child. This grew and grew within me 
until all of a sudden I felt a great rush of life 
and in that instant the healing power returned. 
In a few moments I placed the child back in 
its bed sound asleep and entirely healed. 

The aura which I had lost and regained was 
as real a thing in the first instance as in the 
last and was not the outflow of mere enthusi- 
asm. It really had its rise in what I had thought 
and experienced, but that thought and experi- 
ence had not then been deep enough to make 
the aura permanent and abiding. I had not 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 65 

then reached the place in consciousness where 
I could remain calm and self -centered when dis- 
ease walked into my very house and attacked 
one whom I held most dear. As it was said of 
the Great Physician : He saved others, himself 
he can not save, so it may be said of those who 
heal at the present day. We, too, often save 
others, when ourselves, and those who are 
bound to us in the close ties of affection we can 
not save. 

But we must do it and we will do it. I have 
since proved that, for I have grown in 
power and demonstrated that power in healing 
my sister, several years ago, when the physicians 
could not help her. 

But to treat successfully those who are closely 
allied to us we must become individualized. We 
must free ourselves and let our loved ones go 
free also. We must remove the yokes they have 
placed on us, and also the yokes we have placed 
on them. About the hardest lesson we have to 
learn is to let those we love live their own 
lives as they will and not as we will. We desire 
their happiness, but we desire it in our way, 
which is not always their way. Parents must, 
of course, exercise a certain surveillance over 
their children up to a certain period, but be- 
yond that it should not be extended. You can 
not always protect your child by the shield of 
your experience, for he needs an experience 



66 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

of his own. Let him go free, even though 
it be to wander forth as the prodigal son 
to feed on husks, for he will return some day 
to the good things of the father's house. 

And all this loving espionage is born of a 
wrong belief, a belief that there is nothing be- 
yond the personal mind that can take care of us 
and fill out our endeavor. But what is there 
that can do this ? Why, a Something which we 
may as well call The Supreme Intelligence. 
Do you not see how it worked when my friend 
came to me and asked me to treat her child ? 
Do you not see how she was moved to come to 
me and by that coming drew me out of my 
heart-sickness, disappointment and depression, 
into a life of usefulness, where my ideals were 
to be fulfilled? 

Now, do not mistake me. I do not mean that 
this Supreme Intelligence is a thing apart and 
outside of us, but a something with which we 
are one. If it were not one with us, how could 
it be within us and act through us as it does ? 

And I do not like the expression that I so 
frequently hear — Man is a part of the Supreme 
Intelligence. A part of anything signifies, to 
me, a lack of wholeness, weakness, incomplete- 
ness, separation from the whole. 

My spirit demands that — I shall be the whole 
thing. It also demands that — Tou shall be the 
whole thing. Whenever I accept anything less 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 67 

than this for you or for me, we both seem to 
shrink into pigmies. We grow so small and 
weak and helpless that I have no hope of our 
ever being or doing anything worth speak- 
ing of. 4 

But it is such a puzzle, is it not ? How is it 
that I can be I and you can be you, and yet 
each one of us be all there is ? 

Well, you see, I am only I as I reveal my- 
self in some way to the senses, and you are only 
you as you reveal yourself to the senses. What 
we are, back of the revealing, is quite another 
thing and it is just there and nowhere else that 
we are one. That is, behind the curtain, all is 
one, for it has not been separated yet, as it must 
be in order to express itself. 

Suppose a great body of water were pent up 
somewhere without an outlet. Then it is all 
one. But give it an outlet here and there and 
each stream as it flows forth becomes separated 
from the whole, while at the same time flowing 
forth from that whole. If each stream could 
think, it would probably think of itself in two 
ways, one as being a separate stream, and the 
other as a stream coming from a source. If it 
were a stream with a merely perceptive ten- 
dency, it would only see the stream and not the 
source, but if it were a stream with a reflective 
tendency, it would cast its eye back over the 
current and see where it started from its 
source, and perhaps even look back of that and 
see the source itself. 



68 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

We humans have both the perceptive and 
the reflective tendency and by the development 
of the latter we look further and further back 
into the very heart of being and it is there we 
see it all to be one. It is there that I am all 
and you are all. 

Now, this ALL or The Supreme Intelligence 
projects itself into the world, into the material 
world. In fact, it becomes the material world 
and is in process of becoming it every day 
and every hour. It makes and unmakes its 
world continually. Sometimes it seems not to 
be doing it well, in times of catastrophe and sor- 
row, but that is because we only see a part of 
the whole. How can you judge of a beautiful 
painting by seeing a torn fragment of the 
same ? And yet, let a psychometrist place that 
torn fragment on his forehead and instantly the 
whole painting presents itself to his vision. 

I think we have glimpses of the Great and 
Beautiful Whole in some such psychic fashion, 
else our faith would fail us in times of sore 
trial. Why is it that when we see the part we 
postulate the whole ? Why is it that when we 
see imperfection we postulate perfection ? We, 
who have never seen the whole; we, who have 
never seen perfection. Is it not that the whole 
which is in itself perfection lays its impress on 
the mind, thus moving it to work out in the ex- 
ternal the beauty and glory of the life within % 
I believe it to be so. 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 69 

I am trying in this lesson to cover a great 
deal of ground and hope I have made it clear 
that there is such a thing as an actual emana- 
tion or aura, which corresponds to every state 
of consciousness through which the individual 
passes. To know this makes mental healing 
seem more reasonable, because one can see how 
it is that thought does its work. 

I have also, I trust, made it plain that one 
can not grasp mental healing mechanically or 
in a coldly intellectual manner, although the 
steps leading to the healing vibration may be 
more or less methodical and, therefore, me- 
chanical. 

I have also shown by incidents in my own 
experience that failure should not discourage 
one even though it come when one has reached 
a height where success seems assured. 

I have tried to give a word of encouragement 
to those who are treating members of their 
own families and are not succeeding as they 
wish. To all such I would say again — Do not 
be drawn into the swirl of another's life, 
whether it be that of parent or child, husband 
or wife. With the most loving heart you can 
stand aloof, calm and serene, in the clear con- 
sciousness of the All-Being. Unless you do 
this you will surely fail. * 

And do not feel that you have to do all things 



70 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

by grinding out methods in your every day con- 
sciousness. Leave something for the Supreme 
Intelligence within you to work out. Be will- 
ing that your loved ones shall pass out of your 
sight and trust this same Intelligence to take 
care of them. Don't follow them with your 
anxious thought when they are away from 
home and your loving care. That anxious 
thought is a poison to them and to you. 

I have felt for a long time that there is a 
first step essential to the art of mental healing 
and that is to get rid of the idea of weakness in 
ourselves, and I certainly do not see how we are 
going to do this so long as we place God out of 
ourselves. For this reason I seldom use the 
word "God," because it brings to my mind the 
old and mistaken conception which I held for 
so many years. 

But with the new conception I am none the 
less religious, none the less devotional, for now 
God, the Supreme Love, God, the Supreme In- 
telligence, is to me the transcendent, but ever 
revealing Mystery, and this God I adore. 

This is the God who is, indeed, a very pres- 
ent help in time of trouble. This is the God 
who heals our sickness and those who wait upon 
this God shall renew their strength; they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run 
and not be weary; they shall walk and not 
faint. 



LESSON VIII. 

I am now going to tell you of a very singu- 
lar experience which I think will be of value, 
because it seems to give substance to much that 
has seemed intangible, for you know such 
things as thought, emotion, spiritual influx and 
inner experience have been to us very unreal 
compared with such things as flesh and blood, 
houses and lands, money and possessions. It 
was because of this unreality concerning the 
inner life and the undue value attached to pos- 
sessions that the young man was so sorrowful 
when commanded to sell all that he had and 
follow Jesus. He seemed to be letting go his 
hold on reality and getting nothing in its place. 
He went away very sorrowful, for he had a 
longing for something better than he could find 
in his houses and lands and yet that something 
was not sufficiently defined to make it an object 
of pursuit. Being a young man of good sense, 
that had served him well in the acquisition of 
wealth, it would naturally seem to him unwise 
to cut loose from all that seemed so real and 
pursue a will-o'-the-wisp. 

Doubtless if we could follow that young 
man's history we would find that as the inner 
vision opened the things of the Spirit became a 
reality, and it is of this reality as distinctly felt 
and known by myself that I would speak. 



72 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

When reading with deep interest a book 
called "The Perfect Way/' so great was the 
impression made upon me that I felt my spirit 
rising to a mighty endeavor. I was lifted out 
of my surroundings and into an entirely new 
thought atmosphere. The things of earth 
looked coarse and clumsy, and I seemed to see 
world within world of ever-increasing fineness 
and beauty. As I read on and on I lost all con- 
sciousness of self except in one particular, and 
that was a boring, grinding pain in the palm of 
each hand and through the arch of the instep 
in each foot. This was so marked and so contin- 
uous during the reading of the book, which I 
finished at one sitting, that I mentioned it to 
my sister. We both thought it strange but 
could not account for it. Some time afterward 
in reading a book by Dr. Franz Hartmann, I 
found the statement that in extremely sensitive 
persons it often happens that with the birth of / 
the spiritual life there are attendant signs. It 
is on record that nuns when in deep realization „ 
of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross have had 
a facsimile of the crown of thorns appear in 
blood red marks upon the forehead and have 
felt the anguish of the nails piercing the hands 
and feet. If I am not mistaken Dr. Hart- 
mann spoke of these signs as indicating the 
birth of the Christ Child in Consciousness. 

Psychologists would easily account for this 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 73 

phenomenon on the score of hysteria or hyper- 
sensitiveness, but to my mind that is not a good 
explanation, for while the mental condition in 
such an experience must be extremely sensitive, 
that need not of necessity mean hallucination 
or mental derangement. Indeed I know it does 
not- 
Had I run across Dr. Hartmann's statement 
before reading "The Perfect Way" I might 
think the sensation of boring through the hands 
and feet the effect of imagination, or the know- 
ing that it had happened in other instances, but 
I knew nothing of the kind. Medical students 
often contract the diseases about which they are 
studying, but this experience of mine was, so 
far as I then knew, wholly unprecedented, un- 
thought of, unheard of, coming upon me as a 
surprise and as something for which I could not 
account. 

It all seems simple enough to me now, for I 
can easily see the birth of the Christ to be the 
universal fact as well as the particular. I Be- 
lieve that there was a moment when the Christ 
was born in Jesus. I also believe that there is 
a moment when the Christ is born in each one 
of us and that it is really and actually a birth 
into a new life. When this birth occurs I think 
we first realize what immortal life means, for" 
we then feel its vibrations which are quite dif- 
ferent from those we have experienced in any 
previous state of consciousness. 



74 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

The young man who went away sorrowful 
was seeking eternal life, but he could not find it 
because the Christ Child within him was as yet 
unborn. 

All things are good whether they are of the 
inner or the outer world, but there are degrees 
of goodness, and I think the inner or the inmost 
good the best of all. 

Let us learn more and more of this wonder- 
ful inner life of which we know so little, for 
the thinking, acting self which we do know 
something about is but a small part of the 
whole self. 

I, for instance, am doing much more than I 
know. I reach people with my conscious mind, 
but I am recently led to believe that I reach 
many more with the unconscious mind, or that 
part of myself which is not brought under the 
eye of my mentality. 

Not long ago I received an interesting letter 
from a woman on the Pacific coast. She wrote 
me' that it had occurred to her that she might 
in sleep come in touch with some one who would 
help her, and so when she lay down at night 
her last thought was an invocation to some un- 
known person to give her strength. This went 
on for about two weeks, and she was conscious 
of being strengthened and helped in several 
ways. One day she went into a book store 
and the proprietor handed her a copy of The 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 75 

Radiant Centre. She seemed strangely at- 
tracted to it and fairly devoured its contents, 
then hurrying back to the book store she asked 
— What else has that woman written ? Another 
work was handed her, which she took home and 
read with a strange feeling of familiarity. It 
seemed as though she knew what every page 
would contain before reading it. After she had 
finished she sat gazing into the fire, when a voice 
distinctly spoke to her ; saying: Why not write 
to Kate Boehme ? Write to her to-night. And 
at the same time there flashed upon her a con- 
viction that I was the one who had met her in 
sleep and given her help. 

Such is undoubtedly the case, for while the 
mind focusses on details I am convinced that 
THE WHOLE THING is acting in its own 
way through its auric sphere. 

Do you not see how this can be ? How THE 
WHOLE THING speaks a FULL SEN- 
TENCE while THE PART utters only a 
PHRASE ? Suppose two people greet you with 
a "Good Morning." The same words are used 
by both, and yet how different the impression. 
Do you know what makes the difference ? It is 
what you receive in vibration from THE 
WHOLE PERSON back of each "Good 
Morning." 

What you do and what you say is charged 
nth what you are. You can say "Good Morn- 



76 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

ing" so that it means a very "Bad Morning," 
or you can say it as the glorious sun does 
when he rises over a dark world. 

I honestly believe that it does not make a bit 
of difference whether you are a Methodist, a 
Presbyterian, a Romanist or a Mental Scientist 
if only the Christ Child is born within, you can 
heal whatever the tenets of your belief. The 
Light will shine through you according to the 
color of your temperament, and that color be- 
longs to you as surely as the shade of your hair 
or complexion. 

Naturally I think the New Thought (which, by 
the way, is a New Birth of a very Old Thought) 
a short cut to the Light, and for that reason I 
walk in it. If some one else finds his own short 
cut I bid him God speed. It has been said that 
all roads lead to Rome, and it may also be said 
that all roads lead to the Centre if you follow 
them long enough, but I am weary of the long 
years in the wilderness and have found my way 
out. Those who will may join me. Bless them I 
Those who will not may go another way. Bless 
them just the same ! 

Whatever brings you quickest into a state of 
love toward all mankind is best for you, for 
only in that state can healing be accomplished 
in yourself and others. 



LESSON IX. 

Some years ago I heard of a man who had 
chronic rheumatism. It was so severe that he 
was almost helpless, not being able to walk a 
step unaided or to get in and out of his clothes. 
Every morning he was taken out of bed and 
dressed by a member of the family, and every 
night he was undressed and put to bed like a 
child. One night after safely tucking him into 
bed the entire family left the house to attend 
Church, as was their custom. They had so left 
him on previous occasions and nothing adverse 
had happened, but on this night the house 
caught fire. He called loudly for help, but no 
one came to his relief. The smoke grew stifling 
and the situation critical. Nearer and nearer 
crept the flames, denser and denser grew the 
smoke, until in an agony of fear our invalid 
sprang from his bed, got into his clothes, drag- 
ged a sheet from the bed, pulled out bureau 
drawers, threw everything of value into the 
sheet, slung it over his shoulder and made for 
the street. Where was his rheumatism ? Gone 
completely. And what is more it never re- 
turned. This story is vouched for by reliable 
people. 

The man really had the rheumatism. He was 
not making believe. He was perfectly honest 



78 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

and sane. How was it then that his malady van- 
ished like a dream or a figment of the brain ? 

Well, I will tell you. The thought of FIRE 
and its accompanying DANGER filled the 
man's consciousness FULL. There was not a 
niche or cranny anywhere in it where the 
thought of RHEUMATISM could lurk. It was 
driven out. SCARED OUT. 

Then disease must be in the MIND, though 
it may AFFECT the BODY. 

Still to SCARE a disease out is a good deal 
like some of the old methods of healing in 
which one disease was made to take the place of 
another. 

Why not instead fill the consciousness full of 
something better than FEAR of ANYTHING. 

Why you can fill your mind so full of 
HEALTH that disease (you notice I spell it in 
small type) will not have a shadow of a chance. 

In Hypnotism there is an experiment which 
helps to prove that disease is in the mind. It 
is as follows: An Operator takes two subjects, 
one with a cough, the other without, and throws 
both into a state of hypnosis. He then trans- 
fers the cough from one to the other and wakes 
both from sleep, when the subject who had 
the cough is free from it^while the other coughs 
violently. 

The Operator accomplishes this by telling 
the subject with the cough that he is without 



MENTAL HEALING }L\DE PLAIN. 79 

Ait, and telling the other subject that he has it. 
Each subject being negative to the Operator's 
mind, receives the mental statement given him 
and an immediate effect is produced in the 
body. "As a man thinketk, so is he," from cen- 
tre to circumference. 

This is the Law and why not work with it ? 
I am sure you wish to but possibly you do not 
know how. That is usually the trouble. 

For instance — You have an awful headache 
and you say: "Now is my time to put in prac- 
tice some of my knowledge of Mental Heal- 
ing." Your head aches so that you can hardly 
think at all, but making a great effort you say: 
"I have no headache," and then in parenthesis 
(What a horrible lie for my head is just split- 
ting). But recovering your hold you add : "I can 
not have any headache, for my spiritual self is 
my true self, and that is perfect. It cannot have 
aches and pains. This headache is only an il- 
lusion of the senses and I will rise out of il- 
lusions into Eeality. My headache is gone and 
I am well." 

But it hasn't gone. It is worse than ever. The 
more you declare it gone, the more it stays 
with you. You are in the condition of a certain 
student who was in pursuit of the occult. J3.i& 
teacher had told him to repeata given formula, 
but to be very careful not to -think the, word- 
"Rhinoceros:" -i The consequence -was -itliai .he 



80 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

thought little else but "Rhinoceros." Finally 
in despair he said to his teacher — Why did you 
tell me not to think "Rhinoceros" ? It would 
never have occurred to me if you had not put 
it into my mind, while now I can think of noth- 
ing else. 

So you virtually think "Rhinoceros" when 
you think of that headache at all, even to deny 
it. Do not say or think headache at all, but 
get away from it in thought, something as the 
man got away from his rheumatism, only don't 
be scared out, if you can help it, lest your last 
state be worse than your first. 

Right in the midst of your pain if your 
house should take fire or startling news be 
brought to you, the headache would vanish I 
am quite sure, but in that event you are very 
much like a piece of timber that is floating down 
the river and carried here and there by the tide, 
sometimes tangled with a lot of other drift- 
wood, and sometimes skimming along smoothly, 
but all the time inert and acted upon by one 
thing or another, instead of being a strong 
swimmer, battling with the tide and going 
where you will. 

Don't be driftwood for it is in you to be the 
swimmer. 

But to go back to a consideration of how to 
get rid of your headache (and let the headache 
stand for any other ailment), it is quite possible 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 81 

that you will have to make a great many trials 
before you will be able to throw off the malady 
quickly and easily. In the matter of healing, 
as in everything else, practice makes perfect, 
and the best time to practice is when you are 
not sick. That sounds queer, does it not \ But 
what I mean is that you should build your ark 
before the flood. Then you can get into it and 
ride the waters in safety. 

As I look back over the ten years which I 
have spent in getting to my present status, I 
wonder that I did not give up in despair, for so 
many of my earlier efforts at self-treatment 
ended in failure. I will not go over a list of 
my ailments, but they were many, and neuralgic 
headache was one of the foremost and most dif- 
ficult to vanquish. An effort at self-treatment 
usually ended in a dose of phenacetine or anti- 
pyrine. This was followed by remorse and a 
promise to myself to be truer to my principles 
on the next occasion, but when the next occa- 
sion came (shall I confess it ?) history repeated 
itself. 

Once I sat by the seashore and saw some 
thoughtless boys throwing sticks into the water 
and sending their dog after them again and 
again until the poor thing was so weary that 
he could hardly get to the shore, and I finally 
had to interfere in bis behalf. The tired 
creature reminded me so of myself that it 



82 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

seemed an object lesson. The dog did better 
than I, though, for he secured what he went 
after and brought it to shore, while I, so far, 
had not and I wondered if I ever would. Still 
there was something within me that led me on 
and on in spite of failure and discouragement, 
and I now see that I was really advancing all 
the while, though I was not conscious of it. 

Even after I began healing others I was sub- 
ject to many a setback myself . I remember on 
one occasion I had been suffering all night 
with an attack of facial neuralgia, and one side 
of my face was swollen badly. On the day fol- 
lowing a patient called and my first im- 
pulse was not to see her. That seemed coward- 
ly, so I conquered the impulse and went down 
to the drawing room, though at every step I 
felt like turning and running the other way. 
The patient noticed the swelling, but she did not 
mention it till long afterward. She then said 
her heart went down at the sight of it and she 
wondered if I could help her when I was in 
such a state, but, strange to relate, I did help 
her. I gave a very strong treatment and 
shortly after that the swelling in my face went 
down completely. 

For the moment it had seemed an untoward 
circumstance that a patient should come just at 
that time and find me in such a condition, but 
instead of that it was a means to an end, a hill 



MENTAX HEALING MADE PLAIN; S3 

to climb in the path of higher attainment. Even 
the swollen face had its meaning and good was 
to come out of the apparent ill. 

But the most difficult of all to conquer was 
my tendency to hay fever which had af- 
flicted me from a child. For a time I seemed 
to make very little headway, hut after a while 
I noticed that each year it came a little later 
and left me a little earlier. That encouraged 
me to believe that in time it would go entirely, 
and it did. 

But I must tell you a curious circumstance 
connected with the hay fever, showing again 
that disease is in the mind. At times when I 
was suffering the most, if friends came in who 
were particularly interesting so that my mind 
was completely taken away from myself, every 
trace of hay fever would disappear and I would 
suddenly be conscious of myself as perfectly 
free from every symptom, but they would all 
come back again when my friends left me and 
my thoughts centered again upon myself. It 
is said that hay fever is caused by pollen float- 
ing in the air at a certain season of the year. It 
is not probable that the pollen was abstracted 
from the atmosphere just while I was enter- 
taining my friends, to be restored to it upon 
their departure. It is more reasonable to sup- 
pose that the pollen was present all the while 
and that I was sensitive to it in some mental 



84 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

states and not sensitive in others, or to put it 
more correctly — When the thought of hay 
fever was in my mind the pollen affected me, 
but when the thought of hay fever was crowded 
out the pollen was powerless and could not pro- 
duce in me the same symptoms, although I was 
breathing it in and it was in contact with the 
mucuous membrane. Evidently then the pollen 
could not produce hay fever in me until its 
proxy, in the form of a correspondence (a 
thought) entered my mind. 

I do not deny that material things have 
power to harm us, but I believe they are ad- 
mitted or barred out by mental states, and for 
this reason I am convinced that we can fill the 
mind with something which will make us im- 
pervious to disease. I am also convinced that 
while disease is present with us we can drive 
it out, either all at once or by degrees, as the 
case may be, and that we can do this by filling 
the mind full with the very opposite of 
disease. Every one has the power of imagina- 
tion and every one can use it in picturing 
health. Every one has known a comparative 
state of health for brief moments at least, and 
the recollection is sufficient to forma suggestion 
or pattern for a mental picture to hold in the 
imagination. Try it, dear friends, and you will 
be surprised to find how much you will accom- 
plish. 



MENTAL HEAL1XG MADE PLAIN. 85 

And do not think because ypu are not well 
yourself that you can not help another. Re- 
member my experience with the swollen face 
and take courage. The more you try to help 
others, the more you will put out of mind your 
own ailments and finally they will disappear 
entirely. 

I really believe that I owe my own perfect 
state of health to the fact that I am always 
treating others and totally forget my own 
physical state, except once in a while when I 
am recalled to myself and realize for the mo- 
ment how well I am. 



LESSON X. 

In their effort to get away from too vivid a 
consciousness of material things some writers 
in the ISTew Thought are inclined to depreciate 
or totally ignore the office of the external world 
in the evolution of spiritual life. They forget 
that were it not for external stimulus intelli- 
gent expression would be impossible. Shut a 
child away from all that acts on his senses and 
his life on this plane would become extinct. 
Shut him away partially and in proportion to 
that shutting away does he lack in expression. 
We need this touching on the outside to call 
forth that which is within us. 

As Emerson says: "We stand before the 
secret of the world, there where Being passes 
into Appearance and Unity into Variety/' 

That is the place to learn the secret, to stand 
where Being passes into Appearance and see 
both Being and Appearance; to stand where 
Unity passes into Variety and see both Unity 
and Variety. 

To see Being and Unity only or Appearance 
and Variety only is to stand far off and not be 
present at the revealing of the secret. 

This revealing is going on continually to him 
who stands before the secret and the revealing 
is the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 87 

the seeing ever more and more clearly Being 
as it passes into Appearance, Unity as it passes 
into Variety. 

I have said that mental healing is an art and 
that it, like all art, is built upon a foundation 
of Science. By this I mean that the mind must v 
perceive certain fixed and unalterable truths. 
It must, for instance, see all Being as One and 
it must also see that One as the Continent of 
the Many, the Source of the Many, the Pro- \i 
jector of the Many. 

This is really the primal or basic truth upon 
which all other truths in mental healing are 
based. When the mind has grasped this it is 
ready for other statements. It begins to see a 
Perfect Whole, a Perfect Good, no matter how 
imperfect, incomplete and apparently evil the 
Appearance. 

You are asked as a student of Mental Science 
to perceive that All is Good, but you say — 
How can I, when I see that a part of this All is 
Evil ? But let me tell you how it is. Can you 
not imagine a condition of pure white light in 
which there is not a shadow? Of course it is 
the "light which never shone on land or sea," 
for the moment it strikes the external world 
and shines on land and sea it becomes divided 
into light and darkness. The darkness looks 
like evil, is indeed symbolic of evil, but it is 
only a temporary separation of the pure white 



88 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

light, in which there is no shadow, as it passes 
out from its prenatal state of Being. When it 
is born into this world it becomes light and 
darkness, i. e., the light has the shadow in it 
and sometimes a very dark shadow it is. Often 
the light seems almost swallowed up in inky 
blackness, but the light shineth ever more and 
more unto the perfect day. From darkness to 
light is the evolution of the individual, from 
the darkness of ignorance to the light of intel- 
ligence, from the darkness of hate to the light 
of love, from the darkness of despair to the 
light of hope, from the darkness of sorrow to 
the light of joy. 

To see, feel and know this to be true is a 
necessary step in attaining the healing state of 
consciousness. Then to act as though it were 
true strengthens that state and makes it per- 
manent. To live the life is essential. In living 
the life, in acting and doing, in making mani- 
fest the light lies the Art of mental healing. It 
is as much an Art as Music or Paintings calling 
into play Emotion, Ideality, Imagination and 
that wonderful touch of transcendent genius 
which defies definition, that inspiration which 
comes from the Great Source. 

They say that Truth heals and one feels like 
asking — What is Truth? If I tell you that a 
whole is the sum of all its parts that is Truth, 
but I venture to say it will not heal you. 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 89 

A cold mathematical statement never healed 
any one. I must take that very statement and 
do something with it before it will heal you. 
And what must I do with it? I must let my 
thought, my feeling and my imagination play * 
upon it until I see you as one of the parts of 
the Whole of Being. Until I see you as within 
this Whole and not outside of it. Being within V 
it I see you as a part but not as a separated 
part, more like a finger on a hand. 

Hold up your hand with the fingers extended 
and the palm toward you and you will see what 
I mean. The palm separates or diverges into 
fingers very much as the Whole of Being sepa- 
rates or diverges into external expressions. You 
are the finger on the hand of Being and its 
life is your life. The Whole is the sum of its 
parts, therefore I see every living thing pro- 
ceeding from the Whole, as a part of the Whole 
and receiving the life of the Whole. 

When I see this clearly it brings a great 
influx of life and it is that life which heals. 
It is that and not the dead bones of an anatomi- 
cal statement, a mere skeleton of Truth. My 
statement then becomes — The Living Whole is A 
the sum of its living parts. Science is thus in- 
fused by the living breath of Art. It is the 
Living Truth that heals, but to reach that Liv- 
ing Truth we must use Science as a stepping 
stone. By mechanical appliance we weld the 
cup for our Holy Grail. 



90 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

There is a still higher truth which is based 
upon the one I have just given you. It is this 
— The Whole is not only the sum of its parts 
but it is its parts and its parts are it. When 
you get where you can see that, you have 
reached the highest truth of all. It is a truth 
so high that many stumble at it and will not, 
dare not see it as it is. But there is no hurry. 
Your mounting vision of Truth will overtop 
the obstacle, and you will know the highest, all 
in good time. 

The day is coming, if not now, when you will 
see yourself as continually proceeding from the 
Father. It is in that sense that you are a child 
of God and not in the sense of a child body 
separated from its parent body. The ocean 
is father to the stream that flows forth 
from it and the sun is father to the ray of light. 
The ocean gives of itself to its stream, and the 
sun gives of itself to its ray. It is thus that 
God, the Father, gives of Himself by continual 
influx to His children. The only cutting off or 
shutting off there can be is in the non-recog- 
nition of this truth. We are only partially 
awake concerning ourselves, but a fuller awak- 
ening is just ahead of us and with this awaken- 
ing will come a greater influx of life. 

We are not independent of the external 
touch of the world about us. Human beings, 
circumstances and all things are ever touching 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 91 

the electric buttons which summon the light 
from within. Were it not for these touches 
God could not come forth and walk among 
men. Divinity could not manifest itself in Hu- 
manity. 

You wish to learn how to do mental healing 
and to that end you study course after course 
of lessons on the subject. You follow definite 
instructions and rehearse your denials and af- 
firmations until your mind feels like a tread- 
mill and you, the weary creature who is making 
it go round and round. Are you getting any- 
where ? No. How could you on a treadmill ? 
Is this the way to learn mental healing? No, 
indeed. 

Charles Brodie Patterson very aptly asks the 
question — Has the Metaphysical Movement 
found its soul? I answer positively — It has 
not. The Metaphysical Movement will find 
its soul when its teachers and adherents find 
theirs, and not before. 

And what do I mean by soul ? Well perhaps 
I can define it better by saying what it is not, or 
rather, where it is not. Science has no soul, Me- 
chanics has no soul, Traffic has no soul, Mathe- 
matics, Chemistry, Astronomy are all without 
soul and the intellect alone is sufficient to com- 
pass them. Soul may be infused into them of 
course, but in themselves they may exist in the 
form of mere mental activity and be soulless. 



92 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

Now while soul transcends definition we all 
know it to something higher and better than 
mere mental action. It is the soul in man which 
enables him to lay aside personal interest and 
live for the good of humanity. It is the soul 
in man which makes him speak the truth to his 
neighbor and deal squarely with him in busi- 
ness relations. It is the soul in man, which, ap- 
prehending Truth, is stirred and uplifted by it. 
It is the soul in man which sends out a current 
of healing Love to the world. It is the soul in 
man which endeavors, not only to see the Ideal 
but to live it as well. The Soul is all this and 
more, far more than I or any one can express. 

Just look at the wonderful results that have 
been accomplished by the Fulton Street Noon 
Prayer Meeting of New York City. I do not 
know that it is now in existence, but years ago 
I knew of it and the wonderful cures that were 
wrought in response to the prayers there ut- 
tered. They were simple prayers no doubt, 
very likely illiterate and ungrammatical. Prob- 
ably the mental statements of Being were quite 
mixed and unscientific, so that our latter day 
metaphysicians would have wholly scorned 
them, but they did the work, and why? Be- 
cause they were alive with SOUL. 

My desire is to simplify this work of mental 
healing. There is, to be sure, a deep Philos- 
ophy connected with it which those may pursue 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 9$ 

who have the time and ability, but, in my opin- 
ion, all students, whether making a limited or 
extended study of the subject, need a central 
truth to hold to. That truth I am constantly 
endeavoring to express in one way or another in 
my idea of "a radiant centre" of Life and Being 
from which you and I and all things proceed. 
I have dwelt upon this thought so long that I 
can actually feel this great Centre of Energy 
back of all I say, or think or feel or do. Some- 
times when I have a letter from a patient ask- 
ing for advice upon some perplexing situation, 
it will seem to me that I have nothing to say 
that will be helpful, but I begin the letter. I 
put down the usual preliminary date and ad- 
dress, and then, for an instant, there is a blank. 
This is followed by a rush of thought, just to 
the purpose and endorsed by my judgment as 
the very thing that is best for the ques- 
tioner. The need of the writer presses the 
electric button in my mind and quick along the 
wire leading to the centre runs the demand. In 
response to it out from the centre rushes the 
supply. 

I believe in the power of words, or affirma- 
tions. They too press the button and bring the 1 
current from the centre to circumference, but 
word and formula are apt through repetition to 
become dead and meaningless. In taking a 
formula into the Silence it should not be re- 



94 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

peated mechanically but used rather as a 
theme for meditation. 

There has been much discussion of late as to 
whether the healer heals the patient or whether 
the patient heals himself. My answer is simple 
enough: — The patient is connected with the 
same source as the healer, but he does not know 
how to press the button so as to turn on the 
current and the healer does it for him. After 
a time he learns how to do it himself. 

All life unfolds from within and every indi- 
vidual must grow, from within himself, his own 
health, his own prosperity and his own happi- 
ness. But, while thus unfolding from within, 
he is acted upon from without. Otherwise 
growth were impossible. Poverty, disease, ill 
luck are nothing but calls for the Power Within 
to come forth and manifest itself, and it is in 
this sense that they are good. 

Elbert Hubbard says — We are all children 
in the Kindergarten of God. Yes, and we are 
all growing creatures in the Gymnasium of 
God, strengthening our spiritual muscle on the 
bars of circumstance. 

As you hold to the idea which I have given 
you concerning your radiant centre of growth 
you will little by little pass out of your present 
state of consciousness and the knowledge of a 
larger self will come to you. This larger self 
will contain all that is best and highest and 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 95 

happiest in the smaller self while the little, 
selfish motives with their vanities and conceits 
will have passed away. The new consciousness 
will feel so clean and sweet and good that it 
will be just like moving out of an old musty 
house, falling into decay, into a fresh, bright, 
new one full of air and sunshine. And you will 
go on from one state of consciousness into an- 
other, each better than the last just as you 
would move into better and better houses as 
your circumstances improved. It is hard to 
realize that these changes are in store for you 
but they are. They are coming to me, and to 
others, and they will also come to you. 

The Apostle Paul knew just what he was 
talking about when he said "Again I say unto 
you, rejoice." He did not say "Bejoice when 
something happens that gives you pleasure." 
Xo, for then you would not need the command. 
Xo one needs to be told to rejoice when every- 
thing goes well and he is pleased to his heart's 
core. Why then the command? Well, Paul 
was a learned man and probably understood 
metaphysics. People did in those days, for you 
will find the very highest metaphysics in the 
Xew Testament. Paul was an earnest man. He 
not only preached but he lived the life and he 
knew perfectly well that one can rejoice when 
there is not a thing to be glad over. He knew 
it and I know it, for I have tried it myself and 



96 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

succeeded. If the martyrs could smile and 
sing when in cauldrons of boiling oil you and I 
can rejoice in the midst of lesser ordeals. 

Begin this very day to say within yourself: 
"I will rejoice, I do rejoice." The first effort 
may be a failure as first efforts are apt to be, 
but do not give it up. Day after day declare 
that you rejoice and after a time you will say 
it with power enough to bring a flood of joy all 
through your being. The time to try is when 
thinks look very dark and you are most un- 
happy. Then touch the button which sends 
the call to the radiant centre, where there is 
pure joyous life. The way is thus opened for 
joy to pour into your mind and it comes. 

The Vedantists have a beautiful teaching 
that the Central Consciousness, which is syn- 
onymous with Being or Life, is Pure Bliss, and 
I believe that to be absolutely true. It appeals 
to my reason. I feel it intuitively and have 
reduced it to a working hypothesis. 

The Swami Abhedananda in "The Way to 
the Blessed Life," says: "True Life or being 
or Blessedness is beyond time and space and is 
not bound by conditions of any kind. It is 
not subject to the laws of phenomena. It is in- 
dependent and perfect, while the apparent life 
is dependent upon the laws which govern the 
world of phenomena, and is conditioned by 
time and space. True Life or Beal Being does 



MENTAL HEALIXG :SIADE PLAIN. 97 

not need any kelp from outside. It does not 
require anything from beyond itself. It is 
self-reliant, self-complete, self-sufficient and \1 
self -loving; while the apparent life, being an 
imperfect reflection of the True Life, depends 
upon the conditions of the environment, and 
represents imperfectly those higher qualities of 
self-reliance, self -completeness, self-sufficiency, 
self-love and independence, which make the 
True Life a blessed and perfect Whole. 

"Unblessedness consists in the idea of the 
separateness of the part from the whole, and 
in the bondages of other imperfections arising 
from this mistaken notion of individual isola- 
tion. To be united to the Whole, to be free 
from the bondages of these imperfections, and 
to be perfect — is Blessedness. Each individual 
germ of life, which we have already called the 
apparent life, possesses an innate tendency to- 
ward the attainment of this Blessedness, and to 
freedom from the conditions of unblessedness. 
Our earthly life consists in a continuous fight 
with the environments which have kept us 
away from the Central Truth, or the Blessed 
Life. We are constantly struggling to expand 
the sphere of self-love, by breaking down the 
walls of limitation which constrain the appar- 
ent life to a narrow selfishness, and thus to be 
united with the True Life of Perfection." 

There is in you the innate tendency toward 



98 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

the attainment of Blessedness. There is in you 
this True Life of Joy and Blessedness which 
is called forth to manifest itself when the but- 
ton is pressed in the "apparent life." In this 
True Life you are without disease or unhappi- 
ness. They are only shadows of the "apparent 
life," and when the True Life appears, these 
shadows flee away. 



LESSON XI. 

I have witnessed enough in genuine occult 
phenomena to convince me beyond a doubt of 
a Supreme Force which can manipulate so- 
called matter in an infinitude of ways as yet 
unknown to man. The immortal, indestructible 
and all-powerful spirit which builds for itself 
these bodies of ours, is looking to it that they 
shall be remodeled, beautified, cleansed 
and made plastic to the motions of that Spirit 
which is in itself Joy, Health, Perfection, 
Wholeness, Harmony, Beauty, Strength 
and in fact all, even more than our present 
ideals can compass. We sight but dimly the 
glory that is to be revealed in us, and yet that 
vision, faint though it be, is sufficient to call 
us onward, ever onward in the path of reali- 
zation. 

Does that path look long and hard and 
dreary to the disease racked and the heavy 
laden ? Ah, yes, it must, but trust me, beloved, 
it is shorter, easier and happier than you think. 
The World-Illusion is holding your eyes that 
you can not see, holding your feet that you can 
not walk, holding your hands that you can 
not do. 

You are self -hypnotized by this Illusion while 
the Truth stands waiting to make you free. 

LoFC. 



100 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

I wish you could have witnessed with me 
some wonderful experiments in the integration 
and disintegration of matter, made by an 
Adept from Thibet, for then you would 
understand better upon what I base my 
hope for humanity and you would know with 
me that a self-hypnotic spell is binding man's 
atoms into the form of weakness and disease. 
With that lifted, the Spirit would instantly 
shape all to its own true, healthful and beauti- 
ful pattern. 

The Spirit can break this spell if you will 
trust it, and you can, for it is Love, and you can 
always trust Love. 

Go into the Silence and ask the Spirit to re- 
move this spell which is binding you. The 
Spirit is Intelligence itself and it will hear. It 
is Love itself and it will respond to your ap- 
peal. 

Relax your entire body and say — I now drop 
V all my beliefs concerning myself and my pres- 
ent condition. I am plastic to the motion of the 
Spirit. Let it mould me as it will. 

Your first effort in this direction may not 
count for much, but it will count for something, 
for it will begin to loosen your bonds and per- 
sistent effort will free you entirely. 

ISTo one can claim more of the power of the 
Spirit than you can, although some may have 
called more of it into expression, and those who 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 101 

have can help you by the touch of their mental 
and spiritual vibration. 

As I said in a previous lesson — You are 
acted upon from without. You are touched by 
other beings and by circumstance. This serves 
to call forth the Spirit that is within you. 
Others do not give you the Spirit, for it is not 
theirs to give, since it is free to all. It is yours 
and theirs as well. 

If I go to your house and ring your bell it 
is a summons for you to present yourself, and 
you do so if you are at home and wish to see me. 

The Spirit is always at home and it always 
wishes to present itself. It is always pushing 
toward expression. 

Some people make you feel more alive. Do 
you know why that is ? They have the subtle 
power of calling forth the Spirit from within 
you. Those are the people for you to seek. 
They do you good and help you on toward 
health and happiness. This does not mean that 
you are to lean on others or that others are to 
live your life for you. It only means that life 
is reciprocal and that no man liveth unto him- 
self alone. 

Those who think and talk most learnedly are 
not usually those who can help you most. It 
is those who have suffered as you are suffering, 
those who can feel deeply, those who can sym- 
pathize with you, those who send you the 



102 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

beneficent current of their love, those who with 
the eyes of true wisdom see your way out of all 
this suff ering, who can give you powerful aid. 

I receive many complaints from people who 
have studied Mental Healing for years and 
who have accomplished nothing. Upon investi- 
gation I generally find that such people are 
busying themselves with a lot of non-essentials. 
They are possibly trying to determine whether 
reincarnation be true, or discriminating be- 
tween such terms as Soul and Spirit, or Spirit 
and Being, or Being and Non-Being, and while 
the intellect is abnormally active, health and 
happiness are at a low ebb within them. 

In fact the mind may busy itself in this way 
forever and be no nearer the truth it is really 
seeking for the generation of more and hap- 
pier life. I know this from my own experience, 
when for years I wandered about among details 
without grasping a central truth about which 
to organize a new life. I once thought I must 
be able to distinguish every element upon the 
astral plane before I could create upon that 
plane, but I know now that all this differentia- 
tion is not essential, the main thing being to get 
into rapport with the Spirit, to realize your one- 
ness with it, and to feel it flowing through you 
to will and to do. This is happiness in itself. 
This is health in itself. 

It is health and happiness ever increasing, 



MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 103 

and this once established, then you can differ- 
entiate if you will, then you can study life's 
problems at your leisure, for underneath and 
supporting your mind there is a solid basis on 
which you rest, a fulcrum upon which to place 
your lever. 

"It makes no difference whether you call 
the Supreme Power by the name of Brahma, 
Zeus or God, to realize its Oneness is the first 
step in Occultism." 

It is also the first step on the path to health 
of mind and body, for that is a path in Occult- 
ism, since the way is hidden and only to be re- 
vealed to him who seeks an alliance with occult 
force. 

The fusion of the personal will with the will 
of the Spirit is also a step. It is the letting go 
of a lesser power to grasp a greater. The mis- 
take of many is to suppose that it leads to 
deprivation and pain. On the contrary it leads 
away from both and brings one to the fulness 
of peace and health. 

It is several years since I reached the place 
in my unf oldment where I could say from the 
depths of my being — My will shall henceforth 
be one with the will of the Spirit and I will 
know no other leading. 

That instantly brought me Peace. JSTot stag- 
nation, not inaction, but Peace, which means an 



104 MENTAL HEALING MADE PLAIN. 

activity based upon and proceeding from an un- 
derlying state of repose and harmony. 

I will now draw these lessons to a close, not 
that I have uttered my last word on the sub- 
ject, but because I have said enough to make 
the series complete. 

In "Mental Healing Made Plain" I have en- 
deavored to show you a short cut to that which 
you desire to attain, rather than to point out 
the way in detail, and in doing this, dear read- 
ers, my heart and soul is with you. May you 
find and realize in its fulness, 

"THE BLESSED LITE." 



|4f 

R D 174 






— , 

: °* •'Sire* -^ -m%&' »bv* 




*••- 





* 






*.1 




.<*v<§».- v - o° y^%°- j a 






•: %S 









;•. W :. 












'..•:• A <>*'"• A T ~ 



r * 40 • 



» : >°%. 






.0* ♦•'Air *<>, 4> »i!L'*. ^tft ,<r »»\i!« 



• °~ 4^ * 









4^ ' 






°^ 4^' •* 



V % %5 i^f* c^ 4,0^ •!••- *> 

.-, DOBBS BROS. INC *> . % >RI«^» Ta x^ *a€^*\* A A 






: \S 



DOBBS BROS. INC ^ / 

1 JUL 83 < % 

' .^^^ FLA - ^J«. *° • ' * A <, '"'TVi* .0*" 



